<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>more things in heaven and earth by drelfina, evocates</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464656">more things in heaven and earth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina'>drelfina</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates'>evocates</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Chinese ABO [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Joy of Life, Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Qing Yu Nian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Crack, F/M, Fan Xian is already a troll, Fan Xian is having a terrible time in Beiqi, He is having a terrible time being sent to beiqi, M/M, Other, Slapstick, Tone Whiplash, Wuxia, a very chinese ABO, crack except where it isn't, farcical humour, if you'd been brought up basically isolated can you really tell an alpha from omega, jianghu, my sense of humour, non-traditional abo, read if you trust me don't read if you don't, technically wuxia, the world's most cracky fight scene, wuxia from the perspective of a civilian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:46:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464656</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina, https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fan Xian just wants to get married to Lin Wan'er. if he has to defend the reputation of famous Tang Dynasty Poets that no one here apparently know, escort a bunch of people across the border in a prisoner exchange to do so, then so be it. </p><p>It can't be that hard is it? it's just a prisoner exchange.</p><hr/><p>In which Fan Xian defends Du Fu's poetical genius, tries to help people, tries to do as he's told, tries to <i>not</i> do what he's told, throws his reputation down the drain, fixes politics, and completely misidentifies omegas from alphas.</p><hr/><p>Title from Hamlet: <i>There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt in your philosophy.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chen Pingping/Qing Di, Fan Xian/Lin Wan'er, Li Chengze/Xie Bi'an</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Chinese ABO [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Drelfina: i no longer can blame anyone but myself for this. I was the one who rolled all over evocates and whined and now i have this goddamn monster. </p><p>Half of this was co-written with evocates, and that is why it's a 30K monster in the making. it literally is a fic whose readership i can count on a hand missing a finger or two, and still have fingers left over. </p><p>I'm not gifting this to evocates this time because we literally co-wrote this mess in a fevered dream days before the lifting of our country quarantine, screaming with the effort to finish it before both of us start work again. </p><p>and there is <i>still</i> going to be at least one more fic after this, if i don't count the potential drabbles i'm going to be writing in my now going to be miniscule free time. </p><p>good job me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fan Xian had returned to mentally apologising profusely to the great Tang master of poetry, Du Fu, when he caught a flash of silver at the corner of his eye. Instinct honed by long training with Uncle Wu Zhu kicked into gear, and he sidestepped the blade even before he could fully recognise what it was.</p><p>"Let him come." </p><p>"But what if I don't want to?" Fan Xian said when the Alpha tipped his blade aside, expression flat and menacing.</p><p>"Then leave." </p><p>Fan Xian snorted, and then paced forward past the guard towards the table, and eyeing the back of the beta. </p><p>When he stopped, the beta turned around, just as the wind breezed towards him. </p><p>Alpha. </p><p>But an Alpha dressed like a beta? Odd – everyone knew the Crown Prince was a beta, so perhaps the Second Prince couldn't be allowed to dress up like his actual caste, in order not to exceed his higher-ranked brother. </p><p>(This whole imperial family <i>bullshit</i> still hurt his head. He could understand it but <i>damn</i> it was annoying.)</p><p>"Fan. Xian." the man said. The Prince said. Paced around to sit down in his chair, one leg drawn up like some sort of gangster. </p><p>Fantastic. </p><p>Fan Xian leaned straight in towards the Prince – he <i>was</i> the Second Prince, he decided, had to be, because who else would be so brazen as to demand he come over and meet him? </p><p>The sheer arrogance was very much as he might expect from a Prince. </p><p>And. </p><p>Well. Look at that behaviour? <i>Uncouth</i>, he could all but hear echoed in the generations of every parent of his ancestors, but wisely said nothing about it. </p><p>"Which do you think would be faster, your guard's sword or me?" </p><p>The Prince's eyes and expression was as sharp as a knife, scent rising at the threat—</p><p>And then a blade sliced past Fan Xian’s hair, landing right on top of his clavicle.  "Ah," he said. </p><p>The Prince's expression barely shifted, though there was a smug satisfaction in his gaze. </p><p>"Guess his sword's faster," Fan Xian said, and then reached forward to snag a bunch of big round grapes from the table. </p><p>The Prince's eyes widened a little at his brazenness. Why not, Fan Xian thought. Guy had a blade held at his throat, he deserved some grapes and a little kicking over of the expectations of him. If the Prince thought Fan Xian would be bowled over by his rank and caste, he had another think coming.</p><p>He popped a grape into his mouth, chewed. "Huh, sweet," he commented idly. The sword held against his throat was very steady, not even cutting into skin even as he swallowed even as he was made very and constantly aware of its presence. Had to respect <i>that</i>.</p><p>(Xie Bi'an barely managed to keep his lips from curling up. He could possibly dismiss the rudeness of Fan Xian's tone when speaking to His Highness, but what kind of Alpha would take an omega's food?</p><p>He had not been given permission to cut that throat open, he reminded himself, and made sure to keep his hand unmoving on the handle of his blade.)</p><p>"One word from me," the Prince said, leaning back just a little, cocking his head to the side, "And your life would be gone." </p><p>Ha. </p><p>Fan Xian ate another grape, watched the Alpha Prince stare at him from weirdly pretty eyes. "Your Highness won't kill me." </p><p>"Really," the Prince said, his lips tipping up with a dagger edge. "And why not? If I killed you and presented your head to my brother the Crown Prince, why, we would be reconciled like siblings." </p><p>Fan Xian gestured with the grapes at the Prince's face, "Killing a hundred of me wouldn't appease shi-" </p><p>"How dare you!" the guard's sword jerked up against the soft of his throat, and Fan Xian twitched up. </p><p>The flat of the blade was right under his chin. </p><p>The Guard had an <i>extremely</i> steady hand. Fan Xian spat the seeds out, and then to be a shit, raised the bunch in his hand to bite off three more grapes while staring the guard in the eye. </p><p>"Anything else to say?" the Prince said, watching him like a wolf. </p><p>"Eh," Fan Xian said. "If you really were gonna kill me, you wouldn't do it here." he glanced down at the straight blade, then flicked his gaze to the guard. "And not like this." He smirked at the expression on the Prince's face. "It's too dumb." </p><p>The Prince's expression went briefly slack in surprise. </p><p>Fan Xian ate another grape. And swallowed it, seeds and all. </p><p>(Xie Bi'an didn't know what Fan Xian was playing at. On the surface, it seemed that he was attempting to usurp his position in His Highness's eyes. But his behaviour seemed to challenge His Highness's authority as well, and that was... Well, to borrow the man's own words, it was far too dumb for an Alpha to try to denigrate an omega's status when he was trying to win him.</p><p>His Highness would know, Xie Bi'an thought, and returned his focus to holding his sword steady against Fan Xian's throat.)</p><p>The Prince's gaze sharpened. "Bi'an." </p><p>Fan Xian felt the Guard's focus shift briefly to the Prince. </p><p>The Prince's smile was all teeth as he folded his arms, leaning straight back, clearly ceding the challenge to Fan Xian. "Withdraw." </p><p>The sword withdrew – immediately Fan Xian straightened, getting straight in the guard's face and. </p><p>Wait. Wait. </p><p>The Alpha smelled like the Prince. Disturbingly like the Prince. </p><p>The Alpha was dressed like a typical subordinate, wasn't trying to hide his Alpha caste – but the Alpha Prince smelled like him and dressed beta… </p><p>Oh. <i>Oh</i>. </p><p>They were <i>gay</i>.</p><p>And not just gay: the Second Prince was dressing <i>submissive</i> to his own guard— it—</p><p>Wow. </p><p>That was incredibly transgressive – and despite almost getting his throat slit, Fan Xian immediately felt his sympathies slide towards the Second Prince. </p><p>This was such a shit time to be gay. </p><p>The guard (Bi'an?) glared at him, not even rising to his proximity, despite the brief flare of his Alpha scent, and then strode past him, leaving Fan Xian ostensibly alone with the Prince. </p><p>Though of course not really. That guy had some serious skills. </p><p>Fan Xian rocked back down and sat on the raised platform. </p><p>"That was a good poem," the Prince said, apropos of nothing, like he hadn't just threatened to decapitate Fan Xian, like backing down from an Alpha challenge was nothing at all. </p><p>(Perhaps for him, it was nothing. Considering his … uh, situation.) </p><p>"And I had been thinking of meeting you right from the beginning." </p><p>Well. Fine. if they wanted to bring this up. "You might have, but I didn't want to," Fan Xian said, eating another grape. </p><p>"And why not?" </p><p>"Because the Crown Prince will know I've met you here, and then he'll think I've joined your faction." Fan Xian snorted. Politics, politics and yet more fucking politics. "What a pain in the ass." </p><p>There was silence behind him for a moment, then the Prince padded over on bare feet, dropping the plate of grapes beside him and then crouching down next to Fan Xian. Like equals. Like he didn't mind that Fan Xian had found out. </p><p>Well it wasn't like it wasn't obvious. </p><p>"Well," the Prince said, plucking a grape off a stem with delicate fingers. "Us meeting here, the Crown Prince would have found out eventually." he flicked his head up, the tease of a fringe flipping out of his eye briefly. "You're really not worried?" </p><p>Fan Xian huffed in amusement. "Does your Highness know of an omega girl who likes eating chicken?" </p><p>The Prince blinked blankly at him. </p><p>Ah well. That had been a stab in the dark – pity he was gay, because otherwise an Alpha Prince ought to know all the unmated omegas in the city. All of them would have been paraded in front of him at some point or another for him to choose as a wife, Fan Xian thought.</p><p>"Or how about," Fan Xian said, pasting a fake smile on his face, "love at first sight?"</p><p>The Prince stared at him, then huffed, head tipping in the slightest shake of negation.</p><p>"Guess not," Fan Xian said. "How about I tell Your Highness the story?" </p><p>"Go ahead," the Second Prince said, still looking down at the grapes. "You tell. I'll listen."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The whole scene had been pantswettingly scary, actually. </p><p>Everyone had just <i>stopped</i>, when the horses had cantered in thunderous unison down the street towards them – the Crown Prince's own men looked like they were about to shit themselves at the appearance of the all-black armour of the horses <i>and</i> the men. </p><p><i>Every one of them</i> masked in black that lent them terrifying anonymity.</p><p>Surrounded by the armoured horses was a black carriage, and it drew up smooth and almost silent right in front of the main door of the Investigative Bureau. From what Fan Xian could see, the Crown Prince was probably about to keel over. </p><p>Both the Division Heads Zhu and Yan rushed down, ignoring the Crown Prince to greet the personage in the carriage. It had to be the Chairman, Fan Xian thought; who else could command such an organization, and arrive like an army of figurative death clad in armour at such precise timing? </p><p>Then the two Division Heads wheeled the Chairman out and. </p><p>He was in a wheelchair. </p><p>Fan Xian had time for a second take. A small, older man in a wheelchair, but the Crown Prince and his contingent of personal guards practically looked like a motley crew commanded by a child in comparison. </p><p>When the Crown Prince started yelling about Chen Pingping (yeah, that's the name of the Chairman, he was <i>definitely</i> the Chairman) acting like he was the second highest authority in the country, Fan Xian was watching the Chairman react to the bluster. </p><p>Or rather, not react. </p><p>The man barely seemed to change from the very mild, perfectly placid expression on his face, and his voice was soft, but even the Prince seemed stunned for a moment, enough for the Heads to push the Chairman up the ramps. </p><p>(So that was why there were ramps and barely any steps anywhere in the Investigative Bureau, Fan Xian thought. Great handicap access. Or rather, <i>Chairman</i> access.) </p><p>But the Crown Prince was the kind who apparently blustered and yelled more when scared – he actually started hacking <i>towards</i> the Chairman? </p><p>In a wheelchair? As terrifying an Alpha as he was, he was still in a <i>wheelchair</i> – this was the country's Crown Prince, the <i>future Emperor</i> – he couldn't imagine how such a Prince would treat a delicate omega like <i>Si Lili</i>. He already had her tortured, and now she was locked up in a metal cage masquerading as a jail and unable to escape. He'd probably torture the answers out of her far too easily, and destroy Fan Xian's plans.</p><p>And then Wang Qinian threw a <i>damned</i> knife, whizzing past the Crown Prince's nose. </p><p>And as the Chairman's Black Knights bundled the Crown Prince away for his "safety", Fan Xian saw the Chairman's face – the slight widening of his  eyes and. </p><p>Yeah. So, that was why everyone was so scared of the Investigative Bureau. Headed by an Alpha like <i>that</i> who could give people nightmares while in a <i>wheelchair</i>? </p><p>
  <i>Damn. </i>
</p><p>He had only time to turn around and glare at Wang Qinian before a hand landed on his shoulder. </p><p>"Your Excellency, Mass Hallucination." A guy clad entirely in black and a plague doctor mask that should look hilarious and instead was probably going to give Fan Xian a few nightmares tonight, said. "The Chairman wants to see you." </p><p>Wang Qinian exhaled squeakily behind him, while Fan Xian tried to glare at him. "What was with the stupid title?" he hissed. </p><p>The beta actually <i>cowered</i>, holding his hands up to his face. "Please don't make me explain, Your Excellency," he begged.</p><p>Fan Xian growled at him – like the cowering would help distract him, he <i>knew</i> Wang Qinian, and he was fairly sure that fifty percent of his cowering and cowardice was, like his greed for money, a show. </p><p>"The Chairman," the beta pleaded; and with the looming shadowy presence beside him, Fan Xian could only shake his hand in Wang Qinian's face, promising to wring answers out of him later, before following shadowy guy into the building.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The wheels of the Chairman's wheelchair were surprisingly smooth, making no noise whatsoever as they ate up the stone floors of the Investigative Bureau. It was, Fan Xian stole a glance, a rather remarkable feat of engineering, especially for this age.</p><p>They talked. Or rather, he and Wang Qinian talked, while Chen Pingping made some soft noises that Fan Xian wasn't quite sure could be qualified as speech even as he obeyed the directly-stated order and wrapped his hands around the wheelchair's handle, pushing the Chairman where he was bidden.</p><p>He had never met an Alpha quite like this; one who could put his vulnerability and weakness on full display without trying to compensate for either with a strident voice or loud movements. If Fan Xian hadn't just witnessed the potency and vigour of the Black Knights' galloping clamour down the capital's streets, he would have thought that the Chairman of the Investigative Bureau was truly as weak and frail as he seemed.</p><p>Well, that, and the brief whiffs he caught of musk, nearly sharp enough to punch him right between the eyes with a single breath. Anyone who smelled like that couldn't be—</p><p>Wait. Was that—</p><p>Hah, now that was strange. Fan Xian had never smelled anyone who had <i>floral</i> notes under something as distinctively Alpha as musk. Granted, he hadn't smelled many people in his lifetime – a consequence of growing up in Danzou with only Uncle Wu Zhu as his constant companion, and his uncle carried no scent at all except for a brief hint of steel – but it was still a little... odd.</p><p>He was so distracted by Chen Pingping's scent that he nearly wheeled the man into the wall.</p><p>Luckily Wang Qinian had been dismissed. Or else the beta would probably have shrieked at Fan Xian.</p><p>Or anyone else, for that matter.</p><p>The officers they had passed as they walked and talked (wheeled and talked?) had been giving off massive amounts of protective scents and body language, which was unsurprising, considering that Fan Xian was still pretty much an outsider to all but his Shifu's Third Division.</p><p>And the Alpha Chairman was still vulnerable.</p><p>"Sorry," Fan Xian said.</p><p>Chen Pingping lowered his hand, and there was an amused spark in his eye – barely visible in the dim light – as he shook his head. Then, his fingers twitched towards Fan Xian's right, and he was turning before he realised he had moved. Ah, a window— there were words beneath his tongue, questions aplenty, but he supposed that he had been rude enough for one meeting and so did as he was bidden.</p><p>Sunlight poured into the tiny alcove, followed by a breeze that wicked the Chairman's scent away from Fan Xian's nose. But he wasn't paying attention to that anymore anyway, because the older Alpha was looking, no, staring at him, like—</p><p>"What are you looking at me for?" He heard himself grumble instinctively. "Do I have ink on my face?”</p><p>The Chairman did not answer him, and only spoke once again in that quiet, breathy voice: "Step a little closer." When Xian did, he continued with, of all things, "Your clothes are too thin. You'll catch a cold this way."</p><p>There was something about his voice that Fan Xian couldn't place, and maybe that was why he said absolutely nothing when Chen Pingping started talking to him about his mother. (Yes, he knew he was talking about his old woman from the first sentence; he wasn't stupid.) He had never met the Chairman before, and thus had no chance of hearing him speak because it wasn't as if this world had anything akin to tape recorders, but...</p><p>But there was something achingly <i>familiar</i> about his voice. Something that seemed to wrap Fan Xian up in the softest of blankets until he was nearly overcome with the sudden, inexplicable urge to fall to his knees and cling onto the arm of that chair. That voice, completely unlike any Alpha voice he had ever heard in his life, now murmuring a story about his mother and... and...</p><p>Nothing. He didn't know. He couldn't figure it out.</p><p>And neither could he understand why he felt this strange, heavy weight at the sight of sorrow tugging at the edges of the Chairman’s eyes as he said, "You don't believe me. That's fine."</p><p>Fan Xian came here to stop the Crown Prince from questioning Si Lili. Now the Crown Prince had been chased off, and he should, at very least, pay a visit to Si Lili to—</p><p>"Regarding the matter of Lin Gong," Chen Pingping's low whisper jarred Fan Xian out of his thoughts better than any shout could, "I will take care of the rest." He smiled and Fan Xian felt that strange tug in his chest again. "You have nothing to worry about."</p><p>His mouth opened, but no words came out. His eyes dropped down, but he hadn't lost much control over himself – his fingers were barely tilted up, aborted in their attempts to reach out. He swallowed.</p><p>"Many thanks," he barely managed to drawl out. Then he jerked his arms up into a salute, ducking his head down to stare at the floor because he could not understand why this man, an Alpha, he had just met would affect him this way. "If this one of the younger generation might beg his leave?" he heard himself say.</p><p>"You can come and go as you like from here," the Chairman said, and Fan Xian refused to look into his eyes. "You have the Director's Badge, after all."</p><p>Nodding sharply, Fan Xian turned. He strode out of the Investigative Bureau as quickly as he could without giving anyone the impression that he was running.</p><p>He was halfway back to the Fan residence when a sudden thought came to him: Chen Pingping's scent of heavy musk was almost exactly that of the Emperor's. Except, of course, the Emperor’s didn’t have that hint of daffodils as an undertone. That was…</p><p>Strange.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Being involved with the Imperial family was a right <i>mess</i>.</p><p>Dragged over to stand witness for the fact that the Second Prince's gay lover was most definitely not the murderer in Lin Gong's case, while watching the Emperor and Chen Pingping basically construct some sort of fantastical fiction of framing this poor sucker in Dongyi for having managed to sprint magically over to Qing and murder Lin Gong. </p><p><i>And</i> knowing all along that the Emperor really just wanted some sort of excuse to invade Beiqi… </p><p>While exonerated, the gay lover had to be sent to Beiqi to clear all suspicion <i>anyway</i>, and Fan Xian wondered whether the Second Prince was going to punt his younger brother into the palace pond. </p><p>After slitting his throat. </p><p>At least Xie Bi'an didn't die over there. While Fan Xian had plenty to deal with trying to find out more about his mother for the sake of his Uncle Wu Zhu, he still couldn't help but feel guilty about Xie Bi'an in the shit-end of Beiqi having to fight to clear any suspicion – the war updates constantly came back with the Eldest Prince and his generals smashing their way through some town or other, Xie Bi'an trouncing some pugilists from Beiqi's jianghu… </p><p>At least he came back, bringing the news of Qing's victory to the Imperial court, and dispelled any suspicion with the earning of honours that was just short of a rank of General. </p><p>He'd wondered why, until he realised that Xie Bi'an just hadn't managed to beat Lang Tao nor Shangsan Hu (or was it Shang Sanhu? He still couldn't figure it out and no one would tell him), highly ranked student of Grandmaster whatsisname, and actual scary accomplished famous General of Beiqi respectively.</p><p>Beiqi might have lost, but because Xie Bi'an hadn't managed to publicly defeat either of them, his rank was only Colonel. Which, from what he could gather, was a huge jump from "basically civilian personal bodyguard" anyway. </p><p>So good for him. </p><p>The Second Prince looked cheered up enough during the banquet celebrating Qing's victory and whatever bullshit the diplomats had wrung out from Dongyi and Beiqi, which Fan Xian gathered meant that he was glad his lover had made it back in one piece. </p><p>And then, because politics with the Imperial inhabitants <i>didn't</i> stop there, Dongyi's so-called master scholar tried to claim his teacher had come up with the great master Du Fu's poetry first, which was a fucking <i>lie</i>, so Fan Xian had to vomit out possibly a hundred poems to prove that plagiarizing liar wrong. </p><p>(<i>And</i> after that, he had to sober himself up and go make like a ninja and run around the palace walkways, steal his mother's key from the Empress Dowager's secret pillow compartment, overhear a fucking treason plot, run away, get shot by master archer Yan Xiao-fucking-yi, and then run all the way back and pretend he wasn't about to spit blood.) </p><p>(But getting Yan Fuckface kowtow to his sister for putting his hands on her – he'd put his <i>hands</i> on his <i>omega sister!</i> – was something he'd savour for weeks.)</p><p>After this entire thing? After finding the letters from his mother (locked with a combination <i>safe</i>, fuck, he still can't believe what his old woman actually had done, no wonder no one had ever been impressed with his inventions, not when she'd gotten there first with shit like this) revealing the utterly <i>bonkers</i> truth of why he had memories and what this world actually <i>was</i>... </p><p>He got <s>summoned</s> invited to a lunch with the Second Prince, the Crown Prince, and Qing’s <i>absolute bastard</i> of an Emperor. </p><p>He could call him an absolute bastard, because if Fan Xian didn't go on the mission escorting the prisoner exchange of Xiao En and Si Lili back to Beiqi for Qing's missing spy Yan Bingyun, the Emperor would dissolve his engagement to Wan'er. </p><p>Because apparently he <i>still</i> had some suspicious links to the case of Lin Gong's murder because <i>he had motive</i>. </p><p>For fucking <i>fuck's</i> sake. </p><p>The Emperor said it was a suggestion, not an order. Suggestion his <i>foot</i>. </p><p>It was during times like this that he wished that he could actually take Chen Pingping at his word. He wondered if the man would even go up against the Emperor for Fan Xian's sake. (But why would he? What possible motive could he, terrifying but soft-spoken, strangely <i>comfortable</i> Alpha, have for going up against the <i>Emperor</i>, absolute bastard though he might be?) </p><p>So he was walking the streets, simmering in frustration, and all but walked into Xie Bi'an. </p><p>The Alpha glared at him, like he had stepped in dog-shit. </p><p>".... Xie Bi'an," Fan Xian said. "Not only a great swordsman and hero of Qing, you also scare the crap out of people." </p><p>Xie Bi'an's glare intensified. </p><p>"Let him come on over," the Prince's voice floated over. </p><p>Xie Bi'an didn't even bother to sneer, but stood aside, letting Fan Xian approach a… </p><p>That was a pavilion. In the middle of the street. </p><p>Seriously? </p><p>Fan Xian sauntered over, staring at the incongruous pavilion, just small enough to house one spoilt Prince of Qing and a table of fruit. </p><p>"I don't recall there being a pavilion here before," Fan Xian said. </p><p>The Prince quirked a smile at him, just the faintest hint of humour in the tilt of his chin. "It's new." </p><p>Fan Xian almost reached out to poke the corner pillar of the pavilion. </p><p>"Careful! It doesn't have any foundation," the Prince called out, mouth half-full of grape. </p><p>When Fan Xian glanced up at him, still pacing the little perimeter, the Prince shrugged. "When the wine's all drunk, it'd be taken down." </p><p>"Hah," Fan Xian said. "So that's what this is for. To drink wine in." </p><p>The Prince smiled up at him, cheekily. "I was waiting for you. You can't expect me to sit on the streets, can you?" </p><p>Fan Xian cast a sideways glance to Xie Bi'an – the frivolity apparently just amused the guard. <i>Lovers,</i> man. </p><p> "What's that look for?" The Prince leaned back on one arm, flicking his heavily embroidered gold-and-red sleeve back over his knee. "As an Imperial Prince, I would be going against my nature if I am not frivolous and extravagant." </p><p>Pasting a fake as hell smile on his face, Fan Xian strode over to the seat opposite the Prince and made a great big show of sitting down in a flare of sleeves and robes. Easier this way to hide his irritation.</p><p>"So true," Fan Xian said. "That makes <i>complete</i> sense." </p><p>The Prince picked up an orange, which Fan Xian figured meant <i>sure, make yourself at home with my wine</i>, so he poured himself a cup. "Here, let me toast you first." </p><p>The Prince hummed agreeably and picked up his own cup, and touched it to Fan Xian's, the metal chiming delicately. </p><p>Fan Xian tossed it back, letting the too-sweet burn melt against the back of his tongue. "Good wine," he said. </p><p>The Prince swallowed his drink, put the cup down, and <i>looked</i> at him. "Is it really that good," he said. </p><p>"In a pavilion in the middle of the street, of course any wine is good wine," Fan Xian said. </p><p>The Prince raised an eyebrow. </p><p>There were words on Fan Xian's tongue, and the ghosts of street hawkers who had lost a day of living tugged on his sleeves. At the corner of his eye, he could see the labourers who had put up the pavilion. He could smell fresh wood underneath the sharp spice of the wine and the sweetness of the fruits, and he wondered if a family lost a chance to build a home just to accommodate a Prince's frivolity.</p><p>But he saw, too, the sly cunning in the Prince's gaze, and heard the implications echoing in his words: <i>As an Imperial Prince, I would be going against my nature if I am not frivolous and extravagant.</i> He remembered Wang Qinian's confusion when Fan Xian had brought up the matter of the street being cleared for the Prince's convenience:<i> isn't that the way it should be?</i> And the fear in the eyes of the Fan servants when he told them to chase their own dreams and desires...</p><p>He poured another cup of wine. "Good wine," he repeated.</p><p>The Prince leaned in, and whatever he saw on Fan Xian's face made him laugh. </p><p>"When are you leaving for Beiqi?" he asked.</p><p>"In a few days," Fan Xian said, and the Prince nodded, flicking his hair back. </p><p>Scent wafted over, thick with sandalwood, light with magnolia. Pretty much smelled like his gay lover, Fan Xian thought. </p><p>"Then," the Prince said, curling his hand into a brief fist. "I'm seconding Xie Bi'an to you." </p><p>Fan Xian blinked, hand freezing over a clump of grapes. "... what?" </p><p>"I'm seconding Xie Bi'an to you," the Prince repeated, slower this time, as if he thought Fan Xian was a little slow, or maybe even completely stupid.</p><p>"Yes, I heard," Fan Xian said, and tried to not stare too hard at the pale-knuckled fist on top of the wooden table. "<i>Why?</i>"</p><p>"Why not?" The Prince said, turning away, deliberately flicking his hand carelessly, his sharp profile briefly silhouetted against the pale wall lining the street. "He held off those pugilists, hadn't he? He'd be helpful."</p><p>Xie Bi'an stepped forward, without stepping onto the platform of the pavilion, and snapped a sharp salute to Fan Xian, his face expressionless.</p><p>Staring at the man for a long moment, Fan Xian closed his eyes, and let out a sigh. "Am I allowed to refuse?"</p><p>"Should I make it a <i>suggestion</i>?" the Prince asked, the lilt of his voice at that word making it clear his implication.</p><p>You can't take away my marriage. <i>You</i> don't have the authority.</p><p>But Fan Xian didn't say that, because he might scream it instead. He was so, so fucking <i>tired</i> of the Imperial Family.</p><p>"Is he going to stowaway in my luggage if I refuse?" Fan Xian said.</p><p>"He's a little too tall to fit," the Prince said, voice light. After a moment, he made a sound that was half a sigh, and half a breath hissed through his teeth. "Consider it a favour you're doing for me."</p><p>"A <i>favour</i>?" Fan Xian said. "Why, has he not won enough glory in your name?"</p><p>Weird. What kind of favour—</p><p>No, it sounded <i> almost</i> like the Prince was trying not to...</p><p>A Prince didn't beg, so therefore he must be misreading things.</p><p>Even if Xie Bi'an hadn't moved from his salute, head ducked down and eyes fixed on the floor in the exact position of an official pleading for mercy or, or something else Fan Xian couldn't name... He closed his eyes, shaking his head hard. Everyone in this damned Imperial family was proud, the Second Prince no less so than his father, so...</p><p>Whatever it was, Fan Xian knew there was only one answer to give. His own heart would only let him make one choice. For the gay lovers, he thought, because he was so damned soft in the end.</p><p>"Alright," he heaved a sigh.</p><p>"Thank you, Your Excellency," Xie Bi'an said, without moving from his salute. "Xie Bi'an would not fail this mission."</p><p>"It's just escorting an omega spy and an ancient super-powered guy who hates Qing's entire guts," Fan Xian muttered. "Why would failure even be an option?"</p><p>The Prince smiled at him above his cup, and this pavilion surely caused some strange shadows, because Fan Xian could almost see secrets shaped like tears tucked into the corners of his mouth and eyes.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The journey to Beiqi starts. </p><p>Fan Xian gets off on the right foot with <i>everyone</i>.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger warnings for this chapter: </p><p>Verbal sexual harassment to the point of assault; yet more misidentification of gender/caste; a touch of miscomprehension of the concept of “queer.” very strong hints of misogyny (or its equivalent).</p><p>Please read with caution.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Si Lili had barely been helped up into her carriage – her <i>prison cage</i>, Fan Xian corrected mentally to himself – when the sound of loudly clanging chains reached his ears.</p><p>Fan Xian scrunched up his nose, trying to get the itch of Si Lili's sweet scent – like lilies – out of his nose before he turned to finally face the man he had been told, multiple times, to be the greatest monster that Beiqi had ever produced.</p><p>Xiao En smelled like he looked: soured sweat, matted dust, tangled hair, and an underlying hint of rotting wood. Fan Xian tried to not breathe too loudly through his mouth, watching as Beiqi's monster tilted his head up and raised his hands to the sky as if thanking the sun for its existence.</p><p>Which, given how long he had been locked underground, might not be wrong. It was a mild medical miracle that the man hadn't died of Vitamin D deprivation. For all he knew, dude probably had rickets too.</p><p>He didn't look like much, but the way all those chains, the caution that everyone was treating him with, was almost incongruous with his appearance. He <i>looked</i> like a rather furry mountain man, and not much more.</p><p>"Go on!" said one of the guards, stabbing a sword towards him, and Xiao En snarled, snapping one of the chains forward and almost overbalanced the guard.</p><p>Fan Xian didn't pay much attention to the scuffle that happened next, more interested in watching the Chairman and his teacher out of the corner of his eye. Despite the tension that had wound so tightly around Shifu's body that he was practically vibrating with it, Chen Pingping looked like only propriety was keeping him from lounging in his wheelchair; he was that relaxed.</p><p>Then Xiao En turned, and Fan Xian hurriedly placed his hands back on the handles of the wheelchair as the Chairman spun it around to fully face the mountain man who was now glaring at him.</p><p>"Chen Pingping," the man said. It wasn't a snarl. No; the snarl from earlier had been because the guards were so clearly nervous and tense – this was an intent focus that was fixed entirely on the Chairman.</p><p>Then a thick, vicious scent rose from the man, Alpha musk and something almost spicy, overpowering the rotting wood scent that probably had come from being stuck in a cell for twenty years.</p><p>"I see you're still alive." He laughed, a low rasp of insincerity that did not and could not undercut the flames in his eyes. "That's good."</p><p>"You wished that we died sooner!" Shifu barked, stepping forward. He, Fan Xian could not help but notice, was specifically angling his body as if trying to shield Chen Pingping from Xiao En's sight.</p><p>"No," Xiao En said, gaze never shifting from Chen Pingping. "I hoped and prayed for the two of you to live strong and healthy." He smiled, a nasty thing of yellowed teeth and thickening rot. "So that I could come find you."</p><p>He didn't take a single step forward, but he didn't have to: the look in his eyes was one that Fan Xian could recognise even from afar: an Alpha's predatory gaze.</p><p>Which was...</p><p>Weird. Weird and... uncomfortable. Something about this made him itch up his spine, and Fan Xian took a step closer to Cheng Pingping's chair, hands tightening on the handles.</p><p>He could all but <i>feel</i> his Shifu’s scent rise – like the hackles of a cat's, spitting and snarling, making him want to snarl too.</p><p>Why on earth was Xiao En staring so much at the Chairman?</p><p>"I promised you, didn't I?" Xiao En said, his gaze not moving from Chen Pingping's face, "that one day I'll be out of here."</p><p>And that was pretty much what he'd said back when Fan Xian had peeked into that cell, hadn't he? Not that long ago.</p><p>Except there was a— strange <i>vibration</i> to those words. Fan Xian wouldn't call it a purr, no. It was something about the intensity, coupled with the scent and his predatory gaze.</p><p><i>Oh.</i> The penny dropped. Oh, <i>fuck.</i></p><p>Because that was it, wasn't it? Xiao En was looking like Chen Pingping like he was a predator and that was his favoured prey. Like he wanted to grab Chen Pingping from his chair and not break his neck, not tear him from limb to limb but to pin him against the nearest vertical surface and—</p><p>A touch on his hand. Fan Xian blinked. It took him a moment to realise that he had stepped forward. The arm of the Chairman's wheelchair was practically digging into his thigh, and his own hand was... on the Chairman's shoulder, knuckles white as he sank his nails into the flesh, and that was the Chairman's pale hand, resting on top of his own. And <i>that</i> sound, still echoing in the air, was his own growl.</p><p>Xiao En laughed.</p><p>"A little Alpha to protect you," he said, and oddly, his tone had gone low. Silky.</p><p>Almost incongruous, from a man like him. "You never had that many around you, had you, Chen Pingping?"</p><p>Xiao En hadn't even moved forward a step – the chains in the back hadn't gone taut, and those in the front hadn't slackened, but it felt like he was prowling closer, anyway, and Fan Xian had to take a shallow breath, make himself release his grip.</p><p>"This one from the later generation greets you, Elder Xiao," Fan Xian said. Forcing his hands up in a salute, form-respectful words tasting like ash on his tongue.</p><p>Xiao En's gaze settled on him for long moments before he threw his head up, barking a sharp laugh. "You're really letting me go?" he asked, ignoring Fan Xian entirely to stare piercingly at Chen Pingping again.</p><p>"Are you so afraid that you'll miss me?" the Chairman drawled in reply, leaning forward with his elbows on the arms of the chair. He was <i>smiling</i>.</p><p>"I've thought about <i>nothing</i> but you for the past twenty." This time he did take a step closer. The chains clinked. <i>Deliberately</i>. "Years."</p><p>His scent was coiling forward; and he wasn't moving much, but the <i>entire</i> scene of people stiffened.</p><p>He didn't move further forward. "You smile, Chen Pingping. As if I hadn't broken those swift legs of yours."</p><p>Xiao En's smile was not so much full of teeth as <i>fangs</i>.</p><p>"Can you still run, little Chen Pingping?"</p><p>Fan Xian started forward, and he could see Shifu do the same from the other side of the Chairman's chair. At the same time, ripples of movements travelled down the chains holding Xiao En hostage as fists tightened and bodies tense.</p><p>Then Fan Xian had to stop, and his vision was filled with nothing but Chen Pingping because the older man had wrapped his fingers around Fan Xian's wrist. Around both his and Shifu's wrists, Fan Xian corrected, and stared wide-eyed at the Chairman as his smile widened and he did not turn away from Xiao En's gaze.</p><p>"I understand that you've had a lot of excess energy from your comfortable life as a defeated man," he said, tutting quietly with every other word. "But you're an old man now, Xiao En. You shouldn't get too excited."</p><p>"You needn't be concerned for my <i>excitement</i>, Chen Pingping.”  And that, that was definitely a purr, malicious and full of implication that was barely shielded innuendo. "More for yours. Without those fleet feet of yours, how do you intend to flee? Or will you stand and <i>take</i> it?" And now Xiao En's gaze was deliberate, slow, a sneer as it slid down Chen Pingping's form, not so much tracing as... as <i>lingering</i>. "No. You can't stand anymore can you? Just lie back instead."</p><p>"If you keep spouting that pile of garbage," Shifu's words were barely coherent beneath his snarls, "I will stuff your mouth full of poison until you can't speak!"</p><p>Fan Xian opened his mouth, sharp words on the tip of his tongue to get Xiao En to back off because the Chairman might be an Alpha and Alphas should never need protection, but the Chairman was also in a wheelchair, one that Xiao En had put him in, and the filth that was coming out of this— this asshole's mouth was making Fan Xian's skin creep in a way he had never expect it to do in this world that was so much more proper than—</p><p>Chen Pingping was laughing.</p><p>"I'm afraid you'd never know," he said, and his smile widened further as he dipped his head back, deliberately – <i>holy shit</i> – showing off his neck to Xiao En. "You're not <i>quite</i> enough for me, Xiao En, and you've never been."</p><p>Fan Xian's brain was full of static.</p><p>Chen— the Chairman had just. Just. </p><p>Like <i>that</i>. An <i>Alpha</i>, baring his neck to another – and he wasn't even sure what the <i>fuck</i> that was, because it hadn't been... a challenge. Was it? Or even the <i>ceding</i> of a challenge.</p><p>it hadn't felt like a challenge, even if the words were— almost, sort of—</p><p>Alphas challenged each other, not threatened to ... to whatever it was that Xiao En just <i>did</i>.</p><p>Shifu on his other side made a tiny noise that was almost a squeak.</p><p>Xiao En's laugh was dark and choking and horrible, like oily smoke. "Of course not," he said, low. He still only had eyes for Chen Pingping and his soft, gentle smile.</p><p>"That's why you've acquired the little Alpha isn't it? For your... <i>appetites</i>."</p><p>Chen Pingping's fingers unwound from around Fan Xian's. Then they lifted before the Chairman's arm settled with the elbow on the very edge of the wheelchair's arm. Fan Xian watched, in almost slow motion, as the Chairman leaned forward and rested his chin on the back of his hand, practically fluttering his lashes at Xiao En.</p><p>"Years have passed," he said, voice soft, "but my heart has never wavered." Then his smile widened again, turned almost teasing in a way that had Fan Xian's brain screeching to a halt—</p><p>"Are you jealous?"</p><p>"Jealous?" Xiao En snarled and leaned <i>forward</i>, chains this time clinking as he did so. "Why would I be jealous? You act like I had ever any intention of leaving you alive <i>afterwards</i>."</p><p>"Chairman—" Shifu said, voice just that slightly high pitched.</p><p>"You having a <i>sweetheart</i>," Xiao En said, "would have made it <i>sweeter</i>."</p><p>Chen Pingping laughed again. "You tried," he said. "You failed."</p><p>Then he leaned back against his chair and held up a hand before tilting it sideways. "This is Fan Xian," he said. "Director of the Investigative Bureau. He will be bringing you," one side of his mouth lilted up, "home."</p><p>There was probably some sort of double-meaning there. There <i>had</i> to be a double meaning. Because the alternative was— was—</p><p>"Little Alpha Director Fan," Xiao En said, finally deigning to give Fan Xian more than a cursory glance. "Your newest protege. How would you like having his fingers sent back to you one by one as a gift?" </p><p>"I would dislike it very much," Fan Xian started to say, growl low in his throat, but the Chairman’s soft wave of his hand stopped him. </p><p>"You know well enough that courting gifts at this stage are entirely unnecessary," he said.</p><p>Was no one going to <i>stop</i> this conversation? Fan Xian didn't know what to say, didn't know what would interrupt the vicious thrum in the air between the Chairman and Xiao En, for all that one was in fucking <i>chains</i> and the other was in a <i>wheelchair</i>.</p><p>He also would vastly prefer that no one talked about <i>his</i> body parts as, ugh, <i>courting</i> gifts.</p><p>Xiao En was... was... <i>gay</i>(?!), which wasn't a bad thing in and of itself, except he was…  he was, <i>predatory</i> and terrible and his scent and gaze promised a fate worse than death.</p><p>"Oh no," Xiao En said, because no one had thought of stuffing a gag between his teeth, "You've always preferred to be <i>pampered</i>. Maybe your little Alpha's kidneys too." </p><p>He aimed a smile at Fan Xian – cruel, full of blood.  </p><p>"Or," Xiao En said, a terrible light in his eyes, purr vicious and soft, "Did you prefer his knot?"</p><p>"Neither." The Chairman's voice was very soft, but the air suddenly seemed to drop several degrees. "And it's long past time for Xiao En to be in his cage." He smiled, thin-lipped. "I've indulged a little too long."</p><p>"Go on," Shifu said, gesturing, and everyone jerked into motion, the almost hypnotic spell of whatever horror that Xiao En had been weaving – with his voice, scent and <i>terrible</i> everything – snapping like thin glass.</p><p>"Touched a nerve," Xiao En said, and his interest was now transferred to Fan Xian, even as they yanked at the chains. "Little Director Fan."</p><p>Fan Xian jerked forward, a snarl gathering at the base of his throat—</p><p>"Don't." The Chairman's voice had dropped even lower, barely more than a breath. When Fan Xian darted a glance towards him, his eyes were fixed upon Xiao En. Then he sighed, and when he finally turned to look at Fan Xian, those eyes seemed dark with... sorrow?</p><p>"I might have risked you more than I should with that little game," he said. "I'm sorry."</p><p>"He <i>hates</i> you, Chairman," Shifu said before Fan Xian could say anything. "it's. I. <i>Damn</i>, Chairman, you shouldn't have been here."</p><p>"I'm not even shaken," Fan Xian said to the Chairman, trying to sound reassuring.</p><p>Though how was <i>the Chairman</i> not shaken? Or...</p><p>Well that sweet undertone of the Chairman's Alpha scent was warming, a little, like amber under heat, so the Chairman didn't seem to be affected at all.</p><p>"Good," the Chairman breathed out. His hand patted Fan Xian's elbow before squeezing the joint lightly. "Don't be ridiculous, Fei Jie; of course I had to be here. He wouldn't have been so willing to get into the carriage if he hadn't a chance to throw some jibes at me."</p><p>"Could have sedated the man with an entire tonne of it," Shifu said. "Then no one would have to hear that filth from his mouth."</p><p>A few jibes, Fan Xian said. Of course an Alpha with <i>that</i> sort of musk, wouldn't be afraid of Xiao En's... insinuations.</p><p>(What he must have been like in his prime, facing down Xiao En in person? He was already so fearsome now – was he as fearless then?)</p><p>"I've heard worse," the Chairman waved a dismissive hand. "I'd daresay that the two of you are far more affected than I am." His gaze shifted beyond Fan Xian's shoulder for a brief moment. "Including you, Ruohai." </p><p>Yan Ruohai sighed and, in a move that was surely deliberate, turned his face away from his Chairman. "Fan Xian," he said. "The rest of the party will be waiting for you outside the city's gates." He paused. "Xie Bi'an said that you agreed to him joining you?"</p><p>Fan Xian exhaled heavily, shaking his head to clear the heavy musk that still lingered like a bad ... well, smell, and wished that the damn place was a little more open so the wind would disperse everything faster. </p><p>"Yes," he said, suppressing the mild note of petulance in his tone. "His Highness the Second Prince... <i>requested</i> it. What am I supposed to do with his," <i>Gay lover</i>, Fan Xian didn't say, "ice-cube face I wouldn't have a clue."</p><p>Yan Ruohai blinked. "What is an ice cube," he said. It didn't sound like a question.</p><p>Fan Xian blinked back at him, and then smiled blandly. "Doesn't matter. It's Xie Bi'an's face. I'm looking <i>forward</i> to this entire trip <i>hugely</i>."</p><p>Another blink before Yan Ruohai nodded and stepped back. "It is good that you are eager," he said, and Fan Xian thought that those words sounded vaguely like a threat. Was that something that they trained a person for in the Investigative Bureau? To make anything and everything sound vaguely like threats? </p><p>"Alright, alright," Fei Jie sighed. "Enough of that. Come, I'll walk you to the gate, Fan Xian." </p><p>"You go ahead," the Chairman said. "I have a few words to pass to him first."</p><p>At least Shifu wouldn't send him off with actual threats. Possible short-term poisoning, nothing too uncomfortable, yeah, but vaguely ominous threats wasn't Shifu's style. </p><p>"I'll catch up, Shifu," Fan Xian said, and, shaking out his hands, placed them back on the handles of the wheelchair. "Chairman?"</p><p>(Some people didn't seem to understand <i>sarcasm</i>. Maybe for new year's he should send the Fourth Division Head a dictionary.)</p><p>"Don't let him follow you too far," the Chairman said, nodding in Fei Jie's direction. "He's still injured."</p><p>"Then I should—" Fan Xian started, and almost straightened up before he realised that the Chairman was shaking his head.</p><p>"No, he knows his limits by now, no matter how much he likes to push them." There was a faint hint of a smile on his lips, almost indulgent, before it faded and he focused back on Fan Xian. "You'll do fine with this mission, I'm sure, and...." he hesitated for the briefest of moments.</p><p>"Make use of Xie Bi'an as much as you can."</p><p>Fan Xian really hoped that the Chairman didn't mean it in a literal way because, <i>no</i>. He only had one person in his heart and he intended to keep it that way. It definitely had no space for Xie Bi'an's sword.</p><p>"Why? The Second Prince wants him out of the country for a reason? Again?"</p><p>"He needs to rack up a reputation," the Chairman said. "More accomplishments than those already under his belt." He rested his hand on Fan Xian's shoulder for a moment. "For what reasons, you have to wait for him to tell you himself."</p><p>Saying that the guy already had a <i>reputation</i> of banging the Second Prince into Beta-hood was probably not what Chen Pingping needed to hear.</p><p>"Alright," Fan Xian said, knowing that Xie Bi'an would tell him on the other side of <i>never</i>. "So he can guard Xiao En I guess."</p><p>Guy with that ice-cube face probably wouldn't even turn a hair when Xiao En made lecherous comments.</p><p>Probably.</p><p>"Mm, that would be a good idea," the Chairman said, and he gave Fan Xian another one of those smiles that made his chest feel warmer. He suddenly realised that he was squatting next to the wheelchair, and if he just shifted a little, he could lean against it. If he wriggled over in another direction, he could even lay himself lengthwise against the Chairman's legs, and put his head on his knee.</p><p>... He wasn't quite sure why he wanted to do that. In fact, he wasn't sure why he was suddenly so reluctant to leave when he realised that leaving the capital meant not hearing the Chairman's voice for weeks, maybe even months. And— and when had the sweet, daffodil-like scent underneath the sharp Alpha musk become so comforting to him?</p><p>"You should go," the Chairman said, and there was a lilt to his smile that suggested that he had an idea about what Fan Xian was thinking. "But before you do, make a trip to Taiping Residence. Someone is waiting for you there."</p><p>The Chairman knew that Fan Xian'd <i>been</i> to Taiping residence.</p><p>Fan Xian made himself stand, and the fact that the Chairman's gaze, soft and quiet, followed him as he straightened made him smile back at the man.</p><p>"No hints?"  Fan Xian asked, teasingly. "Do I have to guess?"</p><p>The Chairman raised an eyebrow. "Do you need to guess?"</p><p>Fan Xian huffed, and then leaned on the back of the chair. "I don't want to see him," Fan Xian said. The thought of the Emperor's bastard face made him want to pout. Because what else could the absolute bastard want? He was already going on this "suggested" mission in order to keep the marriage to Wan'er. Oh and toting his Second Son's swordsman as yet another "suggestion". Favour. Whatever. This <i>fucking family</i>.</p><p>"I’d rather hang out with you," he told the Chairman. "You're much nicer."</p><p>The Chairman let out a low chuckle, turning his body so that he had one elbow against an arm of the chair as he looked at Fan Xian. "Don't throw a tantrum," he said, tone too full of mirth for the chiding words to have any effect. "Go to him. He has only good words for you this time, I promise."</p><p>"I'll hold you to that," Fan Xian said, smiling. He was leaning close enough that it was... almost possible to brush an affectionate nuzzle against the man's forehead if he bent more.</p><p>And. And he <i>wanted</i> to. It was so <i>odd</i>. </p><p>"Or else I will come back and throw a tantrum here in front of the entire Investigative Bureau."</p><p>"Don't do that," the Chairman clicked his tongue. His hand twitched on top of the blankets just once before he shook his head, settling back against his chair again. "You should go."</p><p>"Yeah," Fan Xian said thoughtfully, "Division Head Yan would probably eviscerate me. It sounds uncomfortable, so I won't do it." He straightened up. </p><p>"Then I'll be going." He paused. For a little moment of vertigo, he wasn't quite sure what title he should be using, before he added, "Chairman."</p><p>"Stay safe," the Chairman said, and Fan Xian could feel his gaze linger on him as he walked away.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Si Lili was the quiet spot in the entire train of people that Fan Xian had to tote up to Beiqi. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her, really. The entire duration of the mockery of a trial where she'd been <i>tortured</i> had set his teeth against the Crown Prince, no matter that the Crown Prince had apparently changed his mind now about getting Fan Xian on his side. </p><p>He'd tortured an <i>omega</i>. He'd <i>ordered</i>— Just because she had no mate to offend, no spouse to protect her, and not even the Second Prince had said anything, for all that his gaze had tightened, because ordering an omega tortured to get at Fan Xian was more important.</p><p>That fucking <i>family</i>. Seriously. </p><p>(This Time Period of China sucked serious balls if you weren't the Imperial family, except for how it wasn't <i>any</i> time period. Lovely. Great. He was not thinking about his mother's letters.)</p><p>One omega in an entire train of people filled with betas and not a small handful of Alphas, and her essentially in chains besides. </p><p>It wasn't a surprise that she was full of fear, her carriage was all but <i>saturated</i> with the bitter-salt of it. He couldn't blame her for the hairpin, her last plausible and <i>possible</i> line of defense.</p><p>It was instinct, probably, and the moral thing, to try and comfort her; her life plain <i>sucked</i>. Her family and country gone in the succession war that had put Absolute Bastard Emperor on the throne, and she'd sought help from Beiqi, and in return they held her brother hostage and sent her here to be a spy-cum-escort, which was like the world's lousiest definition of safety. </p><p>When he exited her carriage, he still carried the scent of her tears on his shoulder, and his stern look at least kept Wang Qinian's mouth shut. </p><p>Xie Bi'an didn't seem to give him more than a cursory look, his face as frosty as ever. Man, what was he supposed to <i>do</i> with him? </p><p>… he might actually be the best option for guarding Si Lili, he thought. A gay Alpha wouldn’t touch Si Lili, right?</p><p>As much as he'd thought of siccing Xie Bi'an at that creepy pervert Xiao En, he actually wasn't sure he could, with any sort of conscience, leave <i>anyone</i> to ensure that monster got his daily food and drink. </p><p>Guess it was just going to be him then. </p><p>"Your Excellency," Wang Qinian said, hesitantly, when Fan Xian laid out the duties for the night. "Are you <i>sure</i>?" His gaze flicked to Xie Bi'an.</p><p>"I'm certain," Fan Xian said. "If that monster even so much as breathes wrong on Qing's fastest swordsman, I wouldn't have any face to answer the Second Prince." </p><p>Xie Bi'an stared at him, then abruptly turned around to head for the trees. </p><p>Fan Xian assumed that was acceptance. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>(He had to leave before he punched Fan Xian in the face. How <i>dare</i> he? How dare he try to <i>flatter</i> Bi'an by assuming that his self-control was great enough that he could be trusted with a helpless omega prisoner even as an Alpha? How dare he try to <i>insult</i> Bi'an by implying that being mated meant that Bi'an might as well be castrated, unable to be attracted to or attract any other omega other than his Prince?</p><p>Granted, that was true, but—</p><p>His Highness would be expecting letters from him. Bi'an wasn't sure what he would write; a piece of paper filled with rage-inspired ink splotches wasn't what His Highness was looking forward to.)<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
"So hello again, Elder Xiao," Fan Xian said, as he climbed into Xiao En's carriage. "I'd greatly appreciate you not attempting to bite off any of my bits." </p><p>The old man stared at Fan Xian from under his bushy, matted mess of hair. </p><p>Fan Xian would have, if it was anyone else, tried to give the man some sort of dignity like helping him wash his face, maybe tying his hair back in some sort of civilized manner.</p><p>But he didn't trust him with a comb, which was fine enough to be a risk; he knew what hair accessories could <i>do</i> in the right – or wrong – hands. </p><p>He especially didn't trust him with any of the other Alphas, because absolute <i>fucking hell</i> that conversation he'd had with the Chairman still made his spine cringe, and protective rage claw in his chest. </p><p>The man just sneered at him; so to keep up the annoyance factor, Fan Xian kept up a light patter of absolutely nothing important, just to irritate him. Man had been kept in a dungeon for twenty plus years – noise probably was something he both craved and irritated him like crazy. </p><p>After about ten minutes of making sure that the sedatives was in the man's food and blood, Xiao En suddenly spoke up. "You're from Danzhou." </p><p>Fan Xian paused. </p><p>Well. He hadn't been keeping an eye on his accent. "Yeah. So?"</p><p>"Hn." Xiao En eyed him, but now instead of a sneer, the gaze was speculative.</p><p>Fan Xian waited to see if there was more forthcoming; but when the man seemed to doze off, he packed up the food tray and made to leave. </p><p>"Don't trust Chen Pingping," Xiao En said suddenly. </p><p>Fan Xian took a deep, harsh breath, swallowing down a snarl. "... that's a bit rich coming from you," he said, and exited the carriage, slamming the door shut.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Even if they were prisoners, it was still only right that when the retinue took breaks to stretch their legs, Fan Xian let Si Lili out of her carriage to breathe fresh air like the rest of the diplomats. She was a political prisoner, after all, meant for the Beiqi Emperor’s harem. </p><p>That and he still felt bad for her. </p><p>"That's my guard?" Si Lili said, when Fan Xian helped her out of her carriage, staring as Xie Bi'an stalked away to sulk in the trees. </p><p>"Yes. Oh. don't worry, he might be an Alpha, but he's gay," Fan Xian said. </p><p>She gave him a long, speaking look. </p><p>"It's possible," Fan Xian said defensively. "Rare, but homosexuality happens." </p><p>"I literally am no longer sure I understand the words coming out of your mouth," Si Lili said after a moment. </p><p>"That's alright," Fan Xian said, "just know that he won't harm you." </p><p>"I know that," Si Lili said, looking at the tree that Xie Bi'an jumped straight up into.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Really, don't trust Chen Pingping," Xiao En said when Fan Xian next brought him his meal. </p><p>Fan Xian glared down at the man's hands, starting to pull out the needle for the next load of sedation. </p><p>"He was <i>asking</i> for it," Xiao En said. "Flaunting it like that." </p><p>"He's in a wheelchair, how is that flaunting <i>anything</i>?" Fan Xian snapped. </p><p>"You’ve never seen him on the battlefield," Xiao En said, sighing heavily, each word measured and slow. Iif Fan Xian hadn't heard and witnessed the horrible filth that he'd just spat at the Chairman in his <i>presence</i> he might actually take pity on the old man. "You're young. But Chen Pingping…" </p><p>"Is a very scary Alpha yeah, I get that, but he's now in a fucking wheelchair, so keep your filthy tongue off him." </p><p>Xiao En stared at him. </p><p>"You think," Xiao En said, slowly, "that Chen Pingping is an Alpha." </p><p>Fan Xian squinted at the old man. ".... well yeah. What else is he? Is your nose broken, old man? Not that any of that shit you spewed at him was any better if he was a beta— but <i>shit</i>." </p><p>Xiao En's stare narrowed a little more. "Chen Pingping deserves every bit of vitriol going his way," he said, heavily, and now there was threat and anger in his voice and scent but it wasn't… directed at Fan Xian. </p><p>Fan Xian’s hackles rose anyway. </p><p>"I warned you—" </p><p>"That <i>slut</i> was literally asking for it every time he flaunted his omega hormones on the battlefield, every time he all but <i>paraded</i> himself in front of all and sundry—" </p><p>"You called him a <i>what</i>?" Fan Xian said. </p><p>"—And after what he'd done to you-!" </p><p>"The Chairman has done nothing to me!" Fan Xian snapped, and yanked his needle out – at least that had been completed before the old fucking deviant had started in on Chen Pingping.</p><p>Calling the Chairman an <i>omega</i> on one breath and then a slut on the next, he was beyond deviant and perverted! There were literally no words that could be used to describe him!</p><p>Fan Xian picked up the tray of half-eaten food and slammed out of the carriage, all but snarling. </p><p>"Your Excellency?" Wang Qinian and Gao Da said, looking more than a bit spooked at his expression and scent. </p><p>"That— that old <i>bastard</i> tried to lie to me that the Chairman was an omega and therefore deserved to be—" </p><p>"But he is," Wang Qinian blurted out.</p><p>Fan Xian whirled on him, arms raised. "What?" It took a remarkable effort for him to not hurl the tray at Wang Qinian's head.</p><p>"The Chairman is an omega," Wang Qinian said, staring at Fan Xian like he was the crazy one. "The <i>Emperor's</i> Omega."</p><p>The world had gone fucking crazy. </p><p>"He's an <i>Alpha!</i>" Fan Xian yelled, because fuck this, and fuck Xiao En, and definitely, extra fuck, Wang Qinian and his bullshit. </p><p>"Your Excellency," Gao Da said, placatingly, "no one would give him that title if he was an Alpha." </p><p>"He literally smells like an <i>Alpha</i>, what the hell is wrong with you people?!"</p><p>Wang Qinian's mouth worked for a moment. </p><p>"Your Excellency, he…he smells like a <i>mated</i> omega because he <i>is</i> a mated omega," Wang Qinian said. "Are you alright? Do you need… to go lie down? Take a rest?"</p><p>"I don't—" Fan Xian started. "That's not his—"</p><p>"It is." Of all people, <i>Xie Bi'an</i> had decided to join the conversation. He had one arm crossed over his chest, the other clutched, as always, around his sword as he stared at Fan Xian. "Everyone in the capital knows that Chen Pingping is His Majesty's mated omega." He smiled, thin-lipped. "Below one, and above a million."</p><p>"That's just his rank," Fan Xian said, and almost threw his arms up over his head in frustration. Wang Qinian rescued the tray from his hands before it could start flying.</p><p>"Not that you would know, you're gay!" Fan Xian exclaimed.</p><p>All three of the others stared at him in silence.</p><p>"What," Gao Da said, "does that word mean?"</p><p>"That's what I'd like to know too!" Si Lili called from her carriage.</p><p>"Gay!"  Fan Xian yelled. "Homosexual, <i>argh</i>, the term doesn't apply here." Because it was a term from  <i>his</i> time and somehow had never made it across here?!</p><p>"He – bangs Alphas for fuck's sake!"</p><p>Xie Bi'an's face went as still as chiselled rock. "Do you care to repeat that, Your Excellency."</p><p>"HARGH, you and the Second Prince are an item, and yeah it sucks that it's like this in this time and place, I'm real sorry about that but yeah you're <i>gay</i> okay?"</p><p>"... Your Excellency thinks the Second Prince is an Alpha?" Wang Qinian said, voice weak and his gaze distant.</p><p>"He smells like one!" Fan Xian yelled. "He smells like <i>him!</i>" He jabbed a finger in Xie Bi'an's direction.</p><p>Wang Qinian slapped his hands over Fan Xian's mouth, and kicked Gao Da in the knee before he opened his mouth.</p><p>"Your Excellency," he said loudly, over Xie Bi'an's thunderous expression, which was rapidly approaching typhoon levels of darkness. "you are <i>very</i> tired and should go <i>rest</i>!"</p><p>Before Fan Xian could yank Wang Qinian's hands off his person, Xiao En's carriage thumped. Heavily.</p><p>They all went still for a moment.</p><p>"Right, His Excellency is going to take a break now," Wang Qinian said, raising his voice almost to the pitch of hysteria, "so we're going to go over <i>there</i>, and Colonel Xie should go patrol <i>elsewhere</i> and no one is going to be <i>murdered</i>."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Xie Bi'an didn't have the written vocabulary to express just how much he wanted to eviscerate Fan Xian, but at least this time he could actually pen something to his Prince. </p><p>The Second Prince wasn't exactly sure what Fan Xian had done to inspire it, but the picture that Xie Bi'an sent him of stick-figure Bi’an sticking stick-figure Fan Xian full of swords and then flinging him off a cliff was almost  hilarious enough to compensate for his mate not being at his side.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>(for your edification, XBA's stickfigure art, as drawn by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/diana_of_hufflepuff/pseuds/diana_of_hufflepuff">diana_of_hufflepuff</a>. :D</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>well at least someone explained it to Fan Xian!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Okay, fine," Fan Xian said when Wang Qinian hustled him and Gao Da into a tent that technically was private and away from Xie Bi'an's murder face. "So the Prince and Colonel Xie is an open secret and no one should talk about it. But he's gay, there's nothing wrong with it." </p><p>"Not that," Wang Qinian said, looking a little despairing. "Your Excellency, you just accused him of cheating on His Highness." </p><p>"I most definitely didn't," Fan Xian said, indignant.  "In which world is being gay automatically cheating? That's nothing to do with—"</p><p>"Your Excellency," Gao Da said, "Colonel Xie is— is the most <i>proper</i> Alpha I know of." </p><p>"He's got the face and temperament of an iceberg," Fan Xian said, ignoring Gao Da's <i>Iceberg?!</i> "which has nothing to do with his sexuality!" </p><p>There was a very disorientating moment when Gao Da's face was right in front of his, and Fan Xian could feel sword-callused fingers on his cheeks. He barely had a moment to think, slightly panicked, <i>oh, are you gay too,</i> when Gao Da said, in a voice Fan Xian <i>thought</i> was meant to be serious and solemn: </p><p>"Your Excellency, the Second Prince is an omega." </p><p>
  <i>What.</i>
</p><p>"Uh," Fan Xian said, holding a finger up, and delicately peeled Gao Da's fingers off his face. "Firstly, no. He's not. He smells Alpha, dresses beta, is clearly submissive to his gay lover—"</p><p>"Please stop using strange words, Your Excellency," Wang Qinian said.</p><p>"—and maybe in some respects the <i>Prince</i> is gay while the Colonel is performing proper Alpha behaviour, because you know, Alphas don't submit but in this case it seems the higher ranking Alpha is,"  Fan Xian continued without bothering with Wang Qinian's interruption, "which, good for him, his family is a shitshow. Secondly, if he <i>was</i>, then Colonel Xie is doing the <i>worst</i> possible thing of mating an omega and then <i>not</i> marrying him and just expecting the Prince to live in sin."</p><p>Gao Da looked stricken, and he clasped Fan Xian's face in his hands again. "What do you think, Your Excellency," he said, voice barely above a hiss, "that he's even doing here?"</p><p>"Uh," Fan Xian said intelligently.</p><p>"He's trying to earn the right to marry him!" Gao Da said, and, oh fuck, were those tears in his eyes, was Gao Da going to cry over Xie Bi'an and the Second Prince's gay romance? "Marrying an omega is difficult enough already, Your Excellency – not all of us get one dropped on us with an arranged marriage—"</p><p>"Technically," Fan Xian tried.</p><p>"—much less a male omega, much, much less the only omega child of His Majesty the Emperor!" Gao Da finally ripped himself away and punched the air. "The Colonel is trying his best and I support him in his endeavours!!"</p><p>"Keep your voice down!!" Wang Qinian nearly shrieked.</p><p>How did <i>this</i> become some sort of trashy romance novel, Fan Xian had no idea where the conversation had taken an abrupt right turn and careened straight off a cliff.</p><p>"You're worse than Ruoruo," he sighed. "Tragic romance <i>aside</i>, that is not the conclusion I was getting at? Hello, Logic?— Nevermind, nevermind."</p><p>Gao Da technically thought with his muscles, so you couldn't blame him for thinking trashy romance novels were true. Or... whatever it was.</p><p>If anyone's trying to get fucking married here, it was <i>Fan Xian</i>, whose "lucky" arranged marriage was in freaking jeopardy because the Emperor was a bastard-faced asshole.</p><p>He took a deep breath, and tried not to look like his headache was going to explode his skull. "A male omega," he said very patiently, "is never going to be prancing down the streets with only <i>one</i> guard," he said. "Right? A male omega <i>Princess</i> is not going to be seen in <i>public</i>, let alone sitting around in pavilions in the middle of the capital city streets. Ergo, he's not an omega. "</p><p>Because Xie Bi'an, heavens bless his little murder face, <i>was</i> a proper Alpha, as Gao Da had stated. Just gay. And wouldn't mate an omega without marriage. Hell, he was fairly sure Xie Bi'an would never touch an omega for <i>years</i> even <i>after</i> a marriage, he was that proper and unbending.</p><p>A pained look crossed Wang Qinian's face. "Your Excellency," he said, wincing with every word, "we're not supposed to talk about that."</p><p>"What?" Fan Xian cried. "Why?"</p><p>"The Second Prince," Wang Qinian said, "is an omega, and not an omega at the same time." When Fan Xian opened his mouth to point out just how little sense that sentence made, Wang Qinian held up a hand. Gao Da, the traitor, slapped a hand over Fan Xian's mouth to help his new best friend.</p><p>"He ties his hair up like a beta who has come of age," Wang Qinian continued, "and he is allowed to walk the streets with only one guard, and he is <i>allowed</i>," he stressed this word so heavily that Fan Xian wondered if he was hurting his teeth, "to, uh," his hand twitched, his sleeve flapped, "the whole.... matter of Imperial succession."</p><p>Fan Xian blinked.</p><p>"At the same time that we must take him seriously as a beta Prince with the perfect right to," he made one of those little twitches again, "we are also aware that his caste has not changed. He is an omega, Your Excellency, and—"</p><p>"And Colonel Xie is his mated Alpha, trying to win his hand." Gao Da chimed in. "It is very desperately romantic."</p><p>Fan Xian had to bend one of Gao Da's fingers backwards before he'd let go of Fan Xian's face. </p><p>"Stop reading trash novels," he advised Gao Da, then turned to Wang Qinian, "The bastard— His Majesty the Emperor is eccentric, but there's nowhere in the world that he is<i>that</i> eccentric. It's on par with sending out for every female Alpha to come compete for his only omega son's hand, and half the kingdom. There's <i>nowhere</i> in Imperial Chi— <i>Qing</i> that an omega, let alone a <i>male</i> omega, can take the Throne." </p><p>"The Emperor placed his mated omega in charge of an organisation far above any of the Six Ministries," Wang Qinian said very softly.</p><p>"Everyone knows that Chairmen Chen should be kept within the Palace's harem," Gao Da nodded decisively. "Everyone also knows that His Majesty is wise and clear-sighted to not force him to do so."</p><p>"We haven't even <i>gotten</i> to that part of the argument," Fan Xian said, barely resisting the urge to drag his fingers through his hair. "The Chairman smells like the world's sweetest but fiercest and most terrifying Alpha on the planet. <i>Of course</i> he'd be in charge of like, the entire country." </p><p>"Bro," Gao Da said after a moment, "I think His Excellency is scent-blind." </p><p>"Shut up," Fan Xian snapped. "You're supposed to listen to me, Dad said so." </p><p>"Your Excellency," Wang Qinian said after taking a deep breath and a frankly insulting long stare at the ceiling, "the Chairman smells like his Alpha mate, <i>the Emperor</i>."</p><p>Fan Xian opened his mouth. Closed it. Let out a long breath. "Putting aside the very disturbing images," he started. </p><p>"What images?" Gao Da stared at him, eyes huge. "Are you hallucinating, Your Excellency? Should I try to find a doctor?"</p><p>Fan Xian held up his hands, smiling at Gao Da because otherwise he'd probably smack the idiot.</p><p>The only reason his Father didn't fire this guy was probably because Gao Da said nothing while he served under Fan Jian.</p><p>"Shut up," he said again. With as much patience as he could muster, this time. "And, again, <i>no</i>. The Chairman— Chen Pingping is <i>not</i> an omega. I can <i>tell</i> that because I can <i>smell</i> that. Just like I know Gao Da is an Alpha, <i>you</i> are a beta, Si Lili is the world's least fortunate omega, and Xiao En is the world's most disgusting Alpha pervert. Alright? I am <i>not</i> scent-blind."</p><p>Wang Qinian made a very high-pitched, frustrated noise.</p><p>"And now," Fan Xian said, "I'm going to take a <i>walk</i> because you both are fucking <i>crazy</i>."</p><p>He spun on his heel and stalked off, leaving Wang Qinian to bury his face in his palms.</p><p>The first person he saw when he stepped out of the tent was Xie Bi'an. Which, in all honesty, did absolutely nothing for his mood. He pasted on the widest, fakest smile he could muster for him – why couldn't he continue thinking of him as gay? Now he had to look at this guy and think that he mated an omega without marrying him and, ugh, Fan Xian would put his hands around the neck of any Alpha who even <i>thought</i> of doing that – before he continued storming off.</p><p>There was a sword in his face. Fan Xian blinked. Oh, he had somehow ended up in front of Si Lili's carriage, and Xie Bi'an was taking his duties seriously even now and that, Fan Xian reminded himself, was a good thing.</p><p>"I need to talk to her," he said, keeping his voice even with some effort.</p><p>Xie Bi'an's eyes scanned his face for long moments before the sword lifted from his shoulder. With the background noise of the blade returning to its sheathe, Fan Xian took the steps up into the carriage and ducked into it.</p><p>"I heard some incoherent screaming," Si Lili said when he came in.</p><p>"You’re not supposed to hear anything."</p><p>"Then we shall pretend I didn't hear anything at all, and I have no idea whatsoever why you’re here," Si Lili continued. At least this time she wasn't tense with fear.</p><p>"Yeah," Fan Xian said, sighing as he slumped against the wall of the carriage. "Let's go with that."</p><p>Si Lili flashed him a small smile. She was still a little pale – the aftereffects of living in a dungeon without sunlight for weeks, Fan Xian reckoned – but there was a brightness in her eyes that he hadn't seen for a while now.</p><p>"The Second Prince likes to visit us at the Drunken Immortal," she said, gaze turned towards the curtain-covered window of her carriage. "All of the omegas loved his visits, because we never really needed to pander to him or his tastes, or feed his ego, or anything else that we have to do with the Alphas and beta men who come." She chuckled softly. "All he ever wanted with us was to have tea, talk about books, play a few games..."</p><p>When she turned back to look at him, there was a soft smile on her lips. "He paid astronomical sums for five or six of us to sit with him for a few hours. Just for the chance to be an omega. To be like every other omega."</p><p>Fan Xian blinked slowly at her.</p><p>"... Maybe he's really, <i>really</i> gay," he said. "Did your establishment snap up all the omegas they could?"</p><p>But even as he said that his mind was whirling like a top about to fall over.</p><p>Just like every other omega. To <i>be</i> like every other omega. This was the most straightforward Si Lili was being with him, ever, and he could taste her truth and sincerity in the closed air of her carriage.</p><p>He could trust her words. He could only trust <i>her</i> words.</p><p>"Every single one they could find in orphanages," Si Lili dipped her head. "There are regular trips out from the capital towards the farmlands to look for omegas to buy back to be trained." She let out a soft huff of breath. "Despite all that effort, there are only eight of us in total in the entire brothel of forty-something, and not a single one of us is a man."</p><p>Stretching out her hands, she sighed. "One of the others had once said, the Prince's sex and caste made him unique, his birth placed him up on the loneliest of pedestals, and the choices he made..." She shook her head. "It's customary for the workers of an establishment to make fun of our clients. A little playtime, just for us."</p><p><i>But</i>, Fan Xian didn't need her to say aloud to hear, <i>we have never once made fun of him.</i></p><p>The rarest of the rare, one who should have been most protected.</p><p>Fan Xian had literally not heard of any other prominent male omega.</p><p>He'd thought the Prince extravagant, when he'd invited Fan Xian to the Drunken Immortal; he'd thought it slightly odd, and that it was all about <i>Fan Xian</i>, some sort of plot on Si Lili's side, that she, the most exclusive of all of the escorts of the establishment, had come down to see him.</p><p>Some of it <i>was</i> because of that, he was sure, some fucking Beiqi plot pushing for it, possibly.</p><p>But how much of it was because of the Second Prince's name, when the Second Prince hadn't even been <i>there</i>?</p><p>"And yet, he's out there," Fan Xian said, quietly, "putting himself in danger to fight for the throne as a <i>beta</i>."</p><p>He'd thought, he'd <i>honestly</i> thought the man had been an Alpha. He’d thought that he was like that beta cousin of his, the Prince of Jing's son, like <i>many</i> of the noble and moneyed, all of whom visited brothels on a regular basis. And these were brothels, no matter how prettily they dressed up the buildings or the inhabitants inside.</p><p>And now, he couldn't help but think: was it right for the Emperor to push – or was it <i>allow</i>, as Wang Qinian had said – his omega son to fight like this, in the open, in the streets, up front in politics? </p><p>Never <i>allowed</i> to marry because a man like Xie Bi'an, Alpha or not, for all his accomplishments in the battlefield, could hardly be allowed to court a beta Princess (or Prince), let alone an <i>omega Prince</i>. </p><p>That it was the <i>Emperor</i> who was essentially making sure his son couldn't get married. </p><p>"Wow," Fan Xian said after a few longer heartbeats. "He's an actual asshole." </p><p>"It's a choice he made," Si Lili said, voice very soft and gaze once more turned towards the empty nothingness that was the cotton curtains. "One that I have never dared asked him about." A breath. "And as for the other remark..." </p><p>She dropped her chin onto a loosely-clenched fist and rested her elbow on the windowsill as she glanced at him. </p><p>"If <i>I</i> tell you that Chen Pingping is an omega, the most terrifying omega ever born because he <i>weaponises</i> the expectations of his caste, and that he has been mated to the Nanqing Emperor for longer for either of us had been alive... Would you believe it?" </p><p><i>Would you believe,</i> her eyes asked, <i>me?</i></p><p>Fan Xian exhaled in a strangled laugh.</p><p>"I thought," he said, faintly, "you didn't hear anything."</p><p>The Second Prince, he thought, he could believe was an omega. It made sense: the extravagances, the frivolity, that he'd disapproved of when it came from what he thought was an spoilt Alpha Prince, when he slanted his mind to his memories, actually turned out to be the very expected, completely understandable indulgences of a pampered <i>omega</i> Prince. It was just like how his own father spoiled and indulged Ruoruo; just scaled up to an Imperial scale.</p><p>Even the way he dressed – out of caste but like – oh, <i>fuck</i>, he'd put his hair up; there was very little difference between that of a beta of age and a mated omega's styles, just the dress. The second Prince was desperate to be married, but couldn't, not to his chosen Alpha mate. Everything suddenly made sense, now, the way he behaved; it wasn't some sort of weird strange flirtation or Alpha challenge, but instead extremely subdued teasing, an omega being playful but not too overt.</p><p>But he wanted to be mated, married and secure. For Bastard Emperor reasons, the Second Prince wasn't allowed that, and so he subsumed it into a beta-like persona, that only because Fan Xian was somehow initially blinded by assumptions that of course only beta Princes and Alpha imperial heirs would fight for succession, he'd been so mistaken.</p><p>(No wonder Xie Bi'an looked like he wanted to garrot Fan Xian with his own hair. Wow, he must have come across like a true blue <i>asshole</i>.)</p><p>But the Chairman?  A man whose reputation was so terrifying that even his father had tried to obliquely caution him against getting too closely involved with?</p><p>Chen Pingping couldn't be an omega. He couldn't have been mated to the Emperor for <i>decades</i> and not <i>married</i>. A man in a position like that – how was it ever safe for an <i>omega</i>?</p><p>"You still don't believe it," Si Lili said. "You don't think it's possible."</p><p>"I believe you," Fan Xian said, "I just – he's...  he can't be. Omegas ... can't."</p><p>Omegas <i>shouldn’t</i>, is what he wanted to say.</p><p>Omegas craved stability and safety, the words flash in his mind. Security in marriage and safety in the home – depriving an omega of marriage and safety was the worst offense anyone could ever do, short of actual rape.</p><p>In fact, in some jurisdictions, in some points of history, in <i>some parts of the world</i>, preventing an omega from a proper marriage to an Alpha <i>was</i> worse than rape.</p><p>(But that was then. This was... this was some bewildering point in the future, and Chen Pingping was an omega who weaponised his caste.)</p><p>"<i>How</i>?"</p><p>"If I know the answer," Si Lili said, spreading out the fingers of one hand, "I wouldn't be here, in this carriage." Her smile was very wry, and twisted with an odd kind of sorrow at the edges. "There would have been no exchange of prisoners, no need for the Beiqi Emperor to personally ask for me, no diplomatic talks if I had known the answer to that question." </p><p>Drawing her knees up, she dropped her chin in between them and leaned forward. "I would have copied it, modelled myself after it, and Beiqi would have won. My brother would be safe, and I would be free."</p><p>Free.</p><p>Some people... to some people, safety was <i>freedom</i>.</p><p>Maybe that was what the Chairman was looking for: freedom. Freedom and control over their own fate, somehow.</p><p>Fan Xian looked up at her, and took a deep, slow breath. "Would you be safe, in Beiqi?" he asked.</p><p>Because looking at her, like this, the quintessential unfortunate omega, subject to the whims of fate and higher powers, he couldn't help but feel pity.</p><p>He could keep Wan'er safe. He would do <i>anything</i> to keep Wan'er safe. But there were omegas out there (right here) who he could do nothing to help, could do nothing for.</p><p>Her eyes fell shut. "Yes." As she spoke, the sorrow at the corners of her mouth faded away to be replaced by something that very much resembled hope to Fan Xian's eyes. "At least, I think so."</p><p>He couldn't even promise that he'd come for her, if something should happen, if something should make her unsafe.</p><p>He just exhaled, and then pulled out the antidote that his Shifu had given him, and then leaned forward, placing it between them both. "The Investigative Bureau had poisoned you," he said instead, "in hopes that you would poison the Beiqi emperor."</p><p>Her safety hinged on the Beiqi Emperor; if he died, what would happen to Si Lili then?</p><p>This was the least he could do for her.</p><p>He had promised to keep her alive, after all.</p><p>Her hand trembled as she reached out, and she fumbled with the little packet of powder. "It can be considered treason," she said softly, "for you to tell me this."</p><p>"It's considered treason," Fan Xian said, "for me to call the Emperor a bastard asshole." His smile was crooked as hell.</p><p>"It might be treason." He watched her slender, pale fingers tuck the packet within her palm, "but it's the right thing to do."</p><p>Her eyes were downcast, but he didn't need to see them to know what that tiny, glimmering trail on one cheek was. "Thank you," she whispered.</p><p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p><p>Of course when he exited Si Lili's carriage, the first face he got to see was Xie Bi'an's. </p><p><i>Again</i>. </p><p>Xie Bi'an looked like he was dying for an excuse to pull his sword on Fan Xian once more, and frankly, Fan Xian couldn't blame him. </p><p>"I'm sorry I called you gay," Fan Xian said. </p><p>Xie Bi'an's face went through some contortion that, on anyone else, might have been a grimace, and on Xie Bi'an's was an intent to use Fan Xian's guts for shoe laces. </p><p>"And uh, insulted you," Fan Xian said. Wow, awkward apology was awkward. </p><p>"Every word you breathe," Xie Bi'an said, after an even longer awkward silence, "is an insult that I had promised my Prince not to exact on your hide." </p><p>"Great, nice to know," Fan Xian said brightly.</p><p>Xie Bi'an looked like he was exerting his utmost in self-control. Fan Xian supposed he should be glad of that; if not, that sword would have sliced his throat to ribbons by now.</p><p>And since Xie Bi'an promised the Second Prince – promised his <i>mated omega</i> and <i>future wife</i> – to not hurt Fan Xian... Fan Xian slapped him hard on the arm. "You're a good man," he said, and gave him a thumbs up. "I approve."</p><p>Xie Bi'an was practically vibrating with the urge to stab him.</p><p>For a man who looked like carved marble, he had an <i>incredibly</i> expressive face.</p><p>"I don't require your approval."</p><p>This guy, Fan Xian thought, approvingly, was way more fun to tease than Guo Baokun had been, if only because Fan Xian actually <i>liked</i> him.</p><p>"Cool, because I already gave it."</p><p>Xie Bi'an closed his eyes and breathed out, very slowly, and Fan Xian counted an even ten seconds. Dude had a <i>lot</i> of discipline.</p><p>"If you want," Fan Xian said, "I can swap your guard shift out with someone else, and you can guard Xiao En instead?" he said. "I'm sure he will instigate something that will completely and perfectly validate your stabbing tendencies."</p><p>XIe Bi'an opened a single eye. "Our orders are for him to be delivered alive to Beiqi," he said, voice very flat.</p><p>"Yes," Fan Xian nodded encouragingly.</p><p>"My sword has only ever aimed to kill," Xie Bi'an said. "Not to wound."</p><p>"I'm sure that you'll pick it up quickly," Fan Xian said, as bright and encouraging as he could. "It's only a little harder to learn than lethal stabbing."</p><p>Another one of those stares – man, Fan Xian thought, Xie Bi'an must  be awesome at those staring challenges that Alphas were so prone to – before Xie Bi'an straightened even further.</p><p>"If it is Your Excellency's desire for me to guard Xiao En," he said, "then I will." He took one step forward and away from Fan Xian. "Does Your Excellency have any further orders."</p><p>Playtime was over; it would be childish to follow him to tease more.</p><p>"Not at the moment," Fan Xian said, and a thought struck him.</p><p>There had been secret orders for Xiao En to... well be made very dead. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell it to Xie Bi'an yet, since he had a sneaking suspicion if he had to arrange it as bastard Emperor wanted,  someone was going to have to be sacrificed, and the quick swordsman would be a handy scapegoat that Fan Xian was very much disinclined to use.</p><p>But perhaps if they could stage something and let the Prisoner escape and then Xiao En be killed in the 'attempt' to recapture him...</p><p>Would it work? or should he mull over this a little more?</p><p>Fan Xian nodded, and let Xie Bi'an be dismissed. More mulling, before he could consider bringing in Xie Bi'an, he thought. Poor guy. No wonder the Chairman had said he was to use Xie Bi'an as much as possible. </p><p>Earning the privilege to marry indeed. </p><p>Bastard asshole Emperor.</p><p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p><p>"Wait, I know you!" Haitang Duoduo said.</p><p>"Wha—" Fan Xian started before realising that she wasn't looking at him. No, her eyes had settled over his shoulder, and when Fan Xian turned, he realised that the one she was pointing to was Xie Bi'an.</p><p>"Man," she said, "did you do something to piss off Nanqing's government? Their Emperor? Is that why you keep being sent out of the country?"</p><p>"I am not," Xie Bi'an said, tone as flat as ever, "being sent out of the country."</p><p>"You two know each other?" Fan Xian asked, curious despite himself.</p><p>"We've met," Xie Bi'an said, which was almost drowned out by Haitang Duoduo’s voice:</p><p>"Yeah, on the battlefield, he held me off from ambushing a platoon of Nanqing soldiers before they could attack ours. Nice sword; it shines really well under the sunlight." There seemed to be an entire story hidden behind her wide grin, and Fan Xian was suddenly curious to listen to it. "I've been wanting a rematch since we came to a draw."</p><p>"If there is no reason to fight," Xie Bi'an said, "then I have no desire to do so."</p><p>Fan Xian opened his mouth, about to offer Xie Bi'an an order for him to fight the female Alpha who was practically vibrating out of her skin with eagerness, when an arrow shot between them.</p><p>Yan Xiaoyi, Fan Xian recognised immediately. Any other attempt to tease Xie Bi'an would have to come later, he decided, and leapt towards the nearby massive rock to hide from the annoying fucker's eyes.</p><p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p><p>All of this was to say – he'd actually just wanted to <i>try</i> to kill Xiao En quietly, "accidentally on-purpose", because Qing could take the political hit, apparently, though he'd have a couple of days to spin the story and come up with some plausible bullshit to feed to Beiqi.</p><p>Or, well, he'd come up with the bullshit and the diplomats in the retinue would dress it up with fine goose sauce and serve it alongside a nice helping of fuck-you to Beiqi.</p><p>(And then Fan Xian would get to earn the enmity of an entire country he hadn't ever stepped foot in before and he was hitting all of the life goals on the bucket list. <i>Someone's</i> bucket list. Not his – because he really would not have signed up for this stupid list of life accomplishments if he had ever known it was an option.)</p><p>But then they got caught by Shang San Hu. (Shangsan Hu. Shang Sanhu? Please, someone enlighten him)</p><p>"You didn't have to," Xie Bi'an said.</p><p>Fan Xian slanted his eyes over where the other Alpha was, like him, trussed up like a chicken and seated upon a horse. He sighed. "Am I supposed to let him kill you?" When Xie Bi'an opened his mouth, clearly about to say that yes, Fan Xian was supposed to do precisely that, he continued, "Even if I put aside the fact that I know exactly what you're trying to accomplish here and death is the opposite of your desires," he hated having to talk in circles, but he knew better than to talk about Xie Bi'an's relationship with the Second Prince of Nanqing right here in front of Beiqi's Grand General, "you kind of saved my life right there."</p><p>Because Xie Bi'an had stepped in right as Shangsan Hu (it looked prettier like that) had thrown his lance, grabbing it by the handle and flinging it back to the General's face before it could even graze a strand of Fan Xian's hair. Then he had taken over the fight, managing to unseat Shangsan Hu from his horse before the General had slammed him against one of those massive rocks with a thrust of his lance.</p><p>When blood had beaded on Xie Bi'an's lip, Fan Xian had called for surrender by declaring his name and ownership of the wound on Xiao En's body. Then, for some reason that he had a feeling he was going to find out later, he realised that Xiao En didn't want him dead.</p><p>Now they were captured, Yan "Annoying Fucker" Xiaoyi was off somewhere, and Haitang Duoduo was most likely hiding up amidst the rocks.</p><p>... He really fucking hoped that she was hiding among the rocks, or else Xie Bi'an and Gao Da and Wang Qinian were all going to be murdered by Shangsan Hu, and Fan Xian really didn't want to explain to so many people – the Second Prince, his own father, Madam Wang and Wang Qinian's daughter – why all of the people under his command were dead.</p><p>As if to answer his prayers, Yan Xiaoyi and his platoon came riding in like the cavalry.</p><p>(Well, they <i>were</i> were mounted soldiers. Fan Xian had to allow that they could have the title of <i>cavalry</i>)</p><p>"General Shangsan Hu," Yan Xiaoyan called out. "All I'm here for is his life."</p><p>Aaaaand yeah the guy still hated him. Nice.</p><p>Xie Bi'an growled beside Fan Xian, and Fan Xian glanced over.</p><p>"Not friends, huh," he said.</p><p>Xie Bi'an glared at Yan Xiaoyi like the guy had walked into his house with shoes on and spat on his mother. it was personal, that's all Fan Xian was seeing. "No," he said, shortly.</p><p>Which, you know, they were roughly the same age, seemed to have similar backgrounds (because uh, comparing Xie Bi'an's and Yan Xiaoyi's names? Those were not names that actual parents of that class would give to their actual children. Both of them were orphans of some sort, if anything.)</p><p>"I'll even go one step further," Yan the Fucking Annoyance said, leaning forward like the world's worst rescuer, "you can kill him and i won't lift a finger to stop you."</p><p>"I've said," Xiao En said, "I'm taking this Fan Xian back with me."</p><p>Talk about being stuck between a pointy stick and a creepy old rock, Fan Xian thought with mild resignation.</p><p>General Shangsan's lip curled up under his moustache. "Heard that?" General Shangsan said.</p><p>Yan Xiaoyi's horse shifted its weight as Master Archer of Great Annoyance huffed in mirthless amusement. "So in that case." He snarled a little. "You all die here."</p><p>In a flash that would be very impressive if Fan Xian wasn't in line of fire, Yan Xiaoyi released an arrow – and Shangsan Hu cut the thing out of the air with his lance. </p><p>Xie Bi'an had tensed, trying to get free, probably trying to pull a spare dagger from somewhere to start on his ropes. Fan Xian would do the same, if he could, he had <i>plenty</i> of hidden weaponry he could just about reach, except Xiao En grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled off. </p><p>Things were a bit of a blur for a while, because a bunch of soldiers came rushing in from what looked like absolutely nowhere, shouting about killing Beiqi dogs or something, Fan Xian wasn't sure. He only had a few moments to feel vaguely insulted on Beiqi's behalf and slightly glad that these were Qing soldiers – didn't mean that they were allies, because the number of people who wanted to kill him in Qing far exceeded those in Beiqi – before he was gaping because—</p><p>Those soldiers, wearing no armour and little more than rags, <i>unseated</i> Beiqi's Grand General. A man who was, by Fan Xian's estimation during his fight with Xie Bi'an just now, no less than the ninth standard. Holy <i>shit.</i></p><p>Shangshan Hu fought well even when he had lost the advantage of his horse, throwing off two or three of those soldiers who had come at him. Then a glint of silver caught Fan Xian's eye, and he barely had time to breathe when he realised that Yan "Annoying" Xiaoyi had fired off an arrow, and it was headed straight for Shangshan Hu—</p><p>Where the <i>fuck</i> had Xie Bi'an come from? Fan Xian watched, trying to not blink, as the man kicked off a rock and spun in the air, somehow angling himself enough that Yan Xiaoyi's arrow cut through his ropes. He landed on his feet and, without even pausing for breath, jerked his head hard, spitting out the sword – his own sword – that he was holding with his <i>teeth</i>.</p><p>"You," Yan Xiaoyi said. His bow lowered, and he notched another arrow that was pointed straight at Xie Bi'an's face.</p><p>Unlike Fan Xian, who wouldn't have let go of the chance to go all-out cliche by saying, "Me," Xie Bi'an didn't say a word. He drew his sword and threw himself forward, slamming his shoulder against the flank of Yan Xiaoyi's horse, throwing the other Alpha to the ground with a snarl that came deep from his throat.</p><p>Alright, Fan Xian thought. That was some really personal hatred going on there.</p><p>Shangshan Hu didn't have time to do more than gape, of course; those soldiers were back on the offensive, and he had to turn his attention to them.</p><p>Fan Xian, on the other hand, had the fortune of getting to see Xie Bi'an's expression go so completely cold that it felt like a wind from a tundra had blasted through, and Xie Bi'an all but leaping over Yan Xiaoyi's fallen horse to tackle Yan's face back into the dirt.</p><p>"Wow," Fan Xian said.</p><p>And then he got charged by, of all people, Guo Baokun.</p><p>(There was an entire field of Alphas who really wanted him to die today. Fan Xian felt so lucky.)</p><p>After he managed to shake off Young Master Guo's rather deplorable attempt to kill him, the idiot started running in Yan's direction. "Captain Yan!" Guo Baokun shouted. "Captain Yan!"</p><p>At this point, Yan Xiaoyi's back smashed against a rock. Blood dripped down his face, and he drew his lips back into a snarl as he tightened his grip on Xie Bi'an's throat. "I'm," he growled out, "<i>busy</i>."</p><p>Then Xie Bi'an threw his head back, skull smashing against Yan Xiaoyi's teeth, and then two of them fell onto the dirt and continued brawling like untrained cavemen instead of the trained soldiers they were. Alphas, Fan Xian sighed to himself, they were so <i>stupid</i>.</p><p>Everything was a mess of  screaming and yelling – but <i>of course</i> the loudest was Yan Xiaoyi and Xie Bi'an's Alpha brawl in the dirt. </p><p>Fan Xian was just waiting for them to start ripping at each other's hair. This could not get any <i>more</i> farcical. </p><p>When Fan Xian looked away from them, he ended up catching Shangsan Hu's gaze across the field. </p><p>He too had been staring at the two.... well, Fan Xian was hesitant to call them idiots, since there was already one blubbering about trying to kill Fan Xian right here. </p><p>The disbelief on Shangsan Hu's face was actually too entertaining for Fan Xian to not rub it in. He flicked a bright smile and thumbs-up at Shangsan Hu, and the poor perplexed general looked like his eyeballs were about to fall out of his head.</p><p>Then he tipped his head up, gathered some breath, and started shouting.</p><p>"If you don't get a move on, Xiao En is going to get away!" He flapped his hands at the creepy old man's direction, shooing him towards Shangsan Hu. "I'm very sure that your Shifu won't be pleased with that!" A cloud of dust exploded somewhere to his left, giving him an idea. </p><p>"Oh, and, Yan Xiaoyi is the only archer who is above the ninth standard in the entire world!" He cupped his hands around his mouth to make his voice carry louder. "If you don't kill him now, you will eventually see him murder scores of Beiqi soldiers on the battlefield!"</p><p>"I can't believe anyone could—," Yan Xiaoyi started, and then Xie Bi'an literally body-slammed him back into the dirt.</p><p>"This is a great service to your country! You cannot restrain yourself!" Fan Xian let a little desperation creep into his voice.</p><p>Then Haitang Duoduo jumped down from the cliff, and Fan Xian didn't even need to shout a warning before Xie Bi'an tore himself away from Yan Xiaoyi, rolling across the dirt towards where his sword had laid abandoned when the brawl had started. As Haitang slammed nearly face-first into Yan, Xie Bi'an stood up, picked up his sword, and wiped a trail of blood from his cheek.</p><p>His face was expressionless as if he hadn't spent the last five minutes making his own countryman try to eat dirt. Fan Xian couldn't help but <i>like</i> him.</p><p>"Did he steal your grapes one time?" Fan Xian called to Xie Bi'an, while the creepy mountain man stared a hole into the side of Fan Xian's head. Xie Bi'an ignored him.</p><p>Like, damn, Fan Xian was really <i>damn</i> lucky – that took care of Yan Xiaoyi, and Xie Bi'an could go be his semi-murderous backup (like of the number of people on this battlefield who wanted to take Fan Xian away or murder him was actually much higher than when he'd stared down the Literal Crown Prince in the Imperial Court of Justice. Good thing that Xie Bi'an only wanted to murder him a <i>little</i>) against Xiao En <i>and</i> Shangsan Hu.  The Grand General was already starting his way over to Fan Xian and yeah Fan Xian really didn't want to be anywhere near creepy mountain man <i>alone</i>.</p><p>Yan Xiaoyi and Haitang Duoduo's fight got a lot more dignified – just as Xie Bi'an stood in Shangsan Hu's way, blocking him from Fan Xian, thank <i>god</i>.</p><p>"Your Excellency!" Wang Qinian yelped, somehow managing to get to Fan Xian's side with Gao Da— so <i>that</i> took care of Shangsan Hu's soldiers who were trying to stab anyone who looked vaguely like Qing soldiers.</p><p>And.</p><p>And in the mess of the battle, those soldiers – who had to be veterans, somehow managed to cluster to where Guo Baokun was, and—</p><p>"This isn't safe," Guo Baokun said, his voice cracking from – stress? fear? The poor Alpha was such a city boy, and clearly had no idea what a battlefield really was. "You can't die here, your families—"</p><p>And, incredibly, despite the fact that Guo Baokun had no weapons, and really looked like some Family's treasured heir, he literally pulled out a small pouch of silver and shoved it into the nearest of the soldier's hands. (the men were – they were betas, older betas, and looked like they were war veterans for sure. By age – at least a war ago, the air of peasant stock still strong around them) "Go back to Qing, I'll kill him from here."</p><p>"But Sir!"</p><p>Guo Baokun, Fan Xian thought with a bit of confusion, was paying his soldiers off and insisting they return home. safe.</p><p>Even if they hadn't done the job of murdering Fan Xian dead.</p><p>"Are you saying that I can't kill him myself when he's right in front of me?" Guo Baokun said, all fluster and bluster as he glared at the soldiers he had hired. "All of you farmers with— with your axes and your vegetables, you think you're better than me, who have read all of the books on war?"</p><p>"No, Young Master!" One of the men – broad shoulders, broad face, with strong muscles that were likely to come from farming as they were from fighting – said. "But we're worried—"</p><p>"There's no need for such things!" Guo Baokun waved an imperious hand, and turned away. "Now go home before I have to waste my breath chasing you!"</p><p>Guo Baokun was <i>literally</i> chasing his soldiers away.</p><p>He— as if he hadn't tried to kill Teng Zijing's entire family for stepping in his way...</p><p>Or <i>had</i> he?</p><p>There was no one to show off to, not here, why would Guo Baokun do anything but really show his true colours like this? He was oddly kind, his natural Alpha protectiveness showing through his shitty spoilt upbringing, and ... it didn't seem congruent with the fact that he'd had Teng Zijing's family murdered for an even smaller crime.</p><p>if... If Guo Baokun hadn't done it... <i>Then who had</i>?</p><p>No time to think about that now, because Xie Bi'an had drawn his sword.</p><p>"Xiao En still belongs to Nanqing," the man said, his voice flat as always. "He will be returned to Beiqi once we have reached the border. At no point is he to return with you."</p><p>Haitang Duoduo slammed the head of her axe into Yan Xiaoyi's shoulder, and he went down with a crash – ouch, Fan Xian thought. Yan Xiaoyi had taken a real beating, metaphorical and literal – the glare he was shooting Fan Xian was almost scalding.</p><p>And Wang Qinian called out from behind him: "Your Excellency! The diplomatic entourage guards are arriving!"</p><p>Haitang Duoduo paused, and Shangsan Hu froze from where he was going to try and engage Xie Bi'an.</p><p>Yan Xiaoyi spat on the ground – his lieutenant grabbed him by the shoulder. "Let's go!"</p><p>Because, Fan Xian knew, that fucker had been here without permission. Just like Shangsan Hu.</p><p>All of them cleared out without much fanfare, and far quicker than the old soldiers did. <i>Those</i> were still lagging behind, casting occasional glances at Guo Baokun as if they were worried for his safety, as if he had done enough for them to be...</p><p>Never mind. If Fan Xian kept thinking about it, he would get caught in a mire and not be able to pull himself back up, and there were other things to take care of right now. Like Haitang Duoduo, for one. Like, he slanted his eyes to the side, Xie Bi'an, for another.</p><p>Because the other Alpha still had his sword unsheathed, his eyes fixed upon Yan Xiaoyi's reluctantly-retreating figure with something very much like <i>hate</i> burning in them. And Yan Xiaoyi, for all that he was half-draped over his Lieutenant's shoulder, was glaring right back.</p><p>"What," Fan Xian whispered, "is your problem with that guy?"</p><p>He could understand someone being pissed at Yan, because his behaviour towards people was really... But Xie Bi'an really looked like Yan Xiaoyi had murdered his parents. Or, Fan Xian realised with a jolt, like he had tried to touch Xie Bi'an's omega. Surely not—</p><p>"Captain Yan has no restraint," Xie Bi'an said, his voice tight. "No discipline."</p><p>And, of course, Yan Xiaoyi's creepy hearing caught it. He lurched forward, nearly tearing himself out of his Lieutenant's hold. "And you are nothing more than filth on the streets," he spat in Xie Bi'an's direction. "The fact that he allowed you to breathe near him without slitting your throat is already proof of his poor judgment."<br/>Xie Bi'an's lips curved up, and Fan Xian's heart nearly stopped. He had seen many variations of anger and annoyance and frustration and exasperation on this man's face, aimed mostly towards him. He had seen hatred, targeted towards Yan Xiaoyi. But this...</p><p>"You only wish," Xie Bi'an said, voice projected to carry, "that you would be allowed to linger long enough that her scent might graze your sleeve."</p><p>This was <i>cruelty</i>.</p><p>Yan Xiaoyi opened his mouth. Then his Lieutenant hissed, "Captain!" and he jerked his head away, dragging his feet as he was half-led, half-towed towards his horse.</p><p>"Uh," Fan Xian said, unable to withstand his own curiosity. "He.... and His Highness the Second Prince?"</p><p>"No," Xie Bi'an shook his head, his expression shifting back to blankness. "Captain Yan has many faults, but none of it is infidelity. Even though it would be better if he <i>does</i> understand how to give up." Another flash of dark rage. "Or what the word 'no' means."</p><p>Infidelity?</p><p>But the way Xie Bi'an was behaving, was like Yan Xiaoyi <i>had</i> tried to make a move on the Second Prince. What the word "no" means. holy fuck. Holy fucking <i>shit</i>.</p><p>Except... no. The omega had never even -</p><p>Fan Xian had <i>never</i> seen the man around except at Taiping Residence, and in the Palace proper. He had most definitely not been in the Second Prince's residence.</p><p>So he would....</p><p>An Alpha who <i>hated</i> another Alpha for getting... what could anyone hate Xie Bi'an for, except getting what any Alpha could want, the love, attention, and hand of an omega mate?</p><p>"Oh," Fan Xian said. Well that...</p><p><i>Unwanted</i> loyalty, <i>undesired</i> courtship and attention. It was one thing if an omega welcomed it, a fight between Alphas for their attention (though it rarely happened amongst the city-set of cloistered wives and concubines, and the coy attempts of omega courtesans who so trigger it clearly had ulterior motives utterly unrelated to actual mating and security.). It was another if it was completely unwanted.</p><p>Fan Xian shook his head, refocused. He'd talk to Xie Bi'an later, try and draw the story out.</p><p>"Haitang Duoduo, you're not leaving yet?"</p><p>"Oh, I will," she said, tilting her head back to look at him upside-down. Why she didn't just turn around was something he would like to know. "But I'd kill Xiao En first."</p><p>Well shit, Fan Xian thought.</p><p>He completely forgot about the way those in the Jianghu were – they held their word and honour higher almost than family. Where a citizen's worth was loyalty, in the Jianghu it was one's word.</p><p>And Haitang Duoduo had given her word to kill Xiao En.</p><p>Dude was a creepy old man, but even so, Fan Xian couldn't let her kill him.</p><p>"There have been enough dead for today," Fan Xian said, waving a hand towards the pile of bodies – Shangsan Hu and Yan Xiaoyi's men. They would, Fan Xian thought, likely not have their bodies collected, and tried to not wince too obviously at the thought. "Perhaps another day?"</p><p>All for— all over Fan Xian, really. This mission had barely started and it already had a body count.</p><p>He felt ill.</p><p>"I cannot let my master down," Haitang Duoduo said, looking a little regretful. "and even if your entourage's guards were to show up, they can't stop me from killing that man."</p><p>Fan Xian couldn't dissuade her. Wouldn't be able to dissuade her.</p><p>Fine. He'd have to do it her way then.</p><p>"Then," he said, holding out his knife, his hand waving Xie Bi'an back. "You will have to go through me first. An actual proper honorable challenge."</p><p>"You're no match for me," Haitang Duoduo said. Her eyes slid lazily to Xie Bi'an. "He might be more of one; I have been wanting a rematch."</p><p>Before Xie Bi'an could move or say a word, Fan Xian jutted his chin out, keeping his eyes on Haitang. "I'm the one who offered the challenge, so I'll be the one fighting you." His lips twisted into a smile he couldn't feel. "Take it or leave it."</p><p>"Good," Haitang Duoduo said. "Didn't think you were proper Alpha enough to fight me one-on-one." she tipped her chin up. "I can respect that."</p><p>"Then," Fan Xian said. "Challenge accepted?"</p><p>"Challenge accepted," Haitang Duoduo said, and charged.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Drelfina: i waffled little back and forth as to how Li Chengze ought to be referred to, since sex actually isn't how one determines the titles as much as caste. So technically, right now, Li Chengze is 皇子 (huang-zi), child of an emperor, commonly translated as Prince. Before he bound his hair up as a beta, though, his title would have been 公主 (gong-zhu), commonly translated as <i>Princess</i>. </p><p>Unlike the English terms, Chinese isn't gendered quite that way - gong-zhu is always used for daughters of the emperor, yes, but the term itself is not gendered. In this omega verse, then, caste determines which term he is referred to, as well as the <i>role</i> he is performing. He's acting like an actual contender for the throne, equal to the Crown Prince. Therefore, he is called Prince (huang-zi). Fan Xian, not realising Li Chengze is an omega, accepted his title/role of Prince, and assumed he was an alpha.</p><p>To Fan Xian, and actually most people, "omega prince" actually is an oxymoron - two terms that shouldn't be put together. An omega cannot be a prince, a prince isn't an omega, except Chengze is <i>both</i> at once, and everyone's just… gonna go with it, because the emperor allows it. One example of how the title is role can be seen in Wu Zetian's reign -- in the last 15 years of her reign, she took the title 皇帝 (Huang-di), which is commonly translated as Emperor when referring to a man (wiki translates hers as Empress Regnant), when previously she had been Empress dowager (ie mother of an emperor), or empress (wife of Emperor). Emperor means to rule in her own right. </p><p>His/Her Highness is actually 殿下(dian-xia), and when referring specifically to the second prince(ss), it's 二殿下(er dian-xia, second … highness). Dian-xia is actually gender neutral - it also is used to refer to the Emperor's Sister, Li Yunrui. Take Xie Bi'an saying "my prince" to actually refer to him saying "dian-xia" or "His Highness".</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Fan Xian concludes the very useful, very productive fight which is full of alphas who want to kill him, throws his reputation away forever, and meets the Emperor of Beiqi.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Didn't you just say," Haitang Duoduo said, faint hints of smoke still curling around the edges of her twisted-thin lips, "that you wanted a fair fight?"</p><p>"Ah," Fan Xian held up a hand, "but this lowly one is a disciple of Fei Jie. Using poison is fair when <i>I’m</i> fighting."</p><p>She snorted. "And didn't your teacher tell you that it's useless to try to poison on those of the ninth standard and above?"</p><p>"Don't you feel your blood rushing faster, and your body heating up?" When Haitang touched her face with the back of her hand, clearly feeling even if not seeing the flush taking over her cheeks, Fan Xian finally allowed the grin that had wanted to break through for the last five minutes to do so.</p><p>"It's not poison," he chirped. "It's an aphrodisiac."</p><p>Her jaw dropped.</p><p>Gao Da gasped.</p><p>"You— <i>what</i>?!" She said, not quite a yell but it was obvious she wanted to, even though she was rooted to the spot in shock.</p><p>"Your <i>Excellency</i>," Xie Bi'an said, and <i>he</i> sounded like he couldn't believe his ears either.</p><p>Somewhere behind Fan Xian, Xiao En made a small noise of amusement.</p><p>With great restraint that his father would surely be proud of him for, Fan Xian did not put up a victory sign. For one, no one would understand it. For another... "You better not continue fighting," he said, keeping his voice as solemn as he could make it. "I can't guarantee that your life won't be in danger if you do. You better," it was so difficult to not laugh, "leave now."</p><p>"Wow," Gao Da breathed somewhere behind him. "So <i>that</i> is why His Excellency knows a rare word like 'gay'."</p><p>"You— you despicable shameless lowlife!" Haitang Duoduo yelled at him, her face getting redder.</p><p>Xie Bi'an made a noise that was definitely agreement – with Gao Da or with Haitang Duoduo, Fan Xian wasn't sure, but it was from even further away behind Fan Xian than before, so he had a smidgen of a suspicion that Xie Bi'an <i>might</i> be agreeing with Haitaing Duoduo on the evaluation of his character.</p><p>"You'd— you'd put me into <i>rut</i>!"</p><p>And there was just—</p><p>Wang Qinian, just about the only conscious beta around, made a very small sound and scuttled backwards from Fan Xian. And Haitang Duoduo.</p><p>"You immoral— <i>bastard</i>!"</p><p>She glared, hand pointed accusingly at him, before turning and leaping away, because unlike <i>Fan Xian</i>, a despicable terrible horrible no-good person, she wasn't going to force a rut on anyone.</p><p>Fan Xian was really just that good at reading people; Jianghu people were <i>especially</i> easy to read.</p><p>"Well that's done," Fan Xian said when he was sure she was out of earshot, turning around just in time to see Xie Bi'an about to stab him in the… Well, based on the angle, that was probably his liver.</p><p>"Oy!"</p><p>"You," Xie Bi'an said, "have <i>no</i> morals."</p><p>"Listen," Fan Xian tried to say, and dodged out of another stab just as he heard the sound of a heavy splash. "<i>Listen</i>, I have to get her away somehow, and I'm tired from fighting!"</p><p>"By triggering a rut!" Xie Bi'an snapped. "Why would you have such drugs on you in the first place?!" </p><p>And well he wasn't being charged and slammed face down World Wrestling Foundation style, so he was pretty sure Xie Bi'an wasn't <i>that</i> angry, and that this was just a matter of principle.</p><p>Ish. Probably.</p><p>"Dishonourable!" Xie Bi'an hissed.</p><p>Xie Bi'an was, however, mad enough to forgo formality and all semblance of politeness in speech.</p><p>Hooray for Fan Xian. He had somehow managed to piss off the most controlled Alpha he had ever met. Hell, the most controlled <i>person</i>.</p><p>"My Shifu taught me how to think out of the box!" he yelped, and mentally sent an apology to said man for dragging him down into the mire with him. "No one would expect a rut-triggering aphrodisiac being used on an Alpha by an Alpha, which is why it's a great weapon to use!"</p><p>Actually, that was a good idea. He should start carrying those around—</p><p>"Hah," Gao Da said, his voice sounding enlightened enough to cut through the sound of Xie Bi'an trying to stab Fan Xian to death. "And here I was thinking that His Excellency carries those medicines so that he can easily slake his lusts when he wants to."</p><p>Wait, <i>what</i>?</p><p>"I didn't want to slake <i>any</i> lusts!" Fan Xian said, because oh god <i>what</i>, Gao Da— "Stop reading those trashy novels, Gao Da!"</p><p>"Neither of those reasons are moral or honourable in <i>any</i> form," Xie Bi'an said, and it was only because Wang Qinian yelped, <i>"hey the soldiers are here, the SOLDIERS ARE HERE</i>!" that Xie Bi'an didn't skewer Fan Xian through his ribcage.</p><p>And Fan Xian thought they were getting along so well. Sad-face emoji.</p><p>Once the soldiers had arrived and Xiao En was back in chains and Guo Baokun was being dragged back with them, Fan Xian tugged his horse closer to Wang Qinian's. "Hey," he murmured under his breath. "I'd leave it up to you to convince the diplomats and officials that it really was Shangshan Hu who tried to rescue Xiao En, and I had caught him."</p><p>Wang Qinian gave him a wry look. "I've already started preparing my speech, Your Excellency," he said. "Because it seems like I'm the only person around here who gets anything done."</p><p>"Hey, that's not fair," Fan Xian objected.</p><p>"Is it not?" Wang Qinian raised an eyebrow. "Tell me, Your Excellency, what has anyone accomplished in the past few hours?"</p><p>Wang Qinian nodded his head in self-satisfaction as Fan Xian thought, and had to admit – it was true, this entire fight had been... Well he <i>could</i> spin it as drawing out the factions of who wanted to kill him, personally, but really it all seemed to be a matter of degree. </p><p>All he really knew was that Xiao En wanted him alive for creepy reasons, which raised questions instead of answering any. All for the price of his reputation as an honourable Alpha taking a severe nosedive throughout Beiqi's Jianghu. Thank the ancestors and possibly the gods, that Wan'er didn't actually interact with politics <i>or</i> the Jianghu, and her mother was now out of the country and too far to tell her anything about Fan Xian's new, uh, fantastic reputation. </p><p>"It wasn't a few hours," Fan Xian said/ "Two, at most."</p><p>"If that is all you can say in your defense, Your Excellency," Wang Qinian advised, "it's best that you save it."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They actually arrived at Beiqi without much further ado; Gao Da kept visibly stopping himself from mouthing "gay?" in Fan Xian's direction, which meant Fan Xian's dad was probably going to summon him to the study to just shake his head at Fan Xian forever. Wang Qinian kept his word in spinning the entire farce into something reasonable sounding, Xiao En kept giving Fan Xian creepy perv looks, and Si Lili looked like she was just too well-mannered to laugh in Fan Xian's face.</p><p>Xie Bi'an kept looking at Fan Xian like he was worse than dirt beneath his shoes. Fan Xian was pretty sure he <i>didn't</i> want to know just what Xie Bi'an was going to be sending back to his Second Prince – probably terrible screeds about Fan Xian's character and morals.</p><p>Probably the only way to cheer the Alpha up was to mention Yan Xiaoyi's name and how great it was to see that twerpy fuckface eat dirt many times.</p><p>Then there was Shen Zhong and, look, Xiao En was a creepy old man, but he was an <i>old man</i> and Fan Xian was fundamentally against the abuse of the elderly. So, the whole thing with breaking Xiao En's legs and bringing him back in a metal cage with what looked like spikes on the inside? That was just rude. And excessive. And pretty creepy, honestly. Fan Xian almost made a comment about how the people of one's own country could be worse enemies to you than those of an opposing country, and then remembered his entire life so far and wisely kept his trap shut.</p><p>He had to pull some stunt with the flag he had brought – the flag that the Second Prince had given him, in fact, because it was the flag Xie Bi'an had served under – being jammed on top of his carriage as they rode through Beiqi's capital. There was some use to that – not only did he make it clear that Nanqing refused to cower even when surrounded and in enemy territory, but he also found one of their own spies.</p><p>He Daoren. If he remembered correctly, that was the man who lost to Xie Bi'an in the actual war. Given that he was now helping Nanqing... did he throw the match? Fan Xian wanted to ask, and knew that he probably shouldn't because nothing insulted one of these Jianghu people more than an <i>insinuation</i> that they didn't fight or hadn't fought honourably.</p><p>Anyway, he would think more on that later. Now he was busy trying to not sniff his own clothes to see if the salt of sweat had seeped through the layers of silk, because, for reasons unknown to him, Beiqi's Emperor wanted to see him.</p><p>It couldn't be— wouldn't be, as terrible as meeting the Qing Emperor, right? The Qing Emperor was known to be... well, ruthless was the kindest word ever used for him. And Fan Xian had stood up to him just fine.</p><p>The little Emperor of Beiqi and his Empress Dowager mother were fighting for power – as far as Fan Xian knew, she refused to relinquish her hold on the reins even as the Little Emperor had reached his majority, and the Little Emperor was trying to firm his power base and force her to retire.</p><p>For Si Lili's sake, he really hoped he got to firm up his power base – Fan Xian otherwise had no stake in this fight.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The Beiqi's Imperial Palace was very impressive, built at the top of a million stairs reaching up to heaven. It had taken <i>how</i> long to get to the middle, and <i>yeah</i> Shen Zhong said it was because this was the proper way an impressive, awe-inspiring palace should be, but all he could think of was how many steps they put there and no true ramps at all in order to prevent Chen Pingping from getting his wheelchair up.</p><p>Heh.</p><p>It was almost like they were so scared of Chen Pingping they literally tried to put obstacles in his way via aggressive architecture.</p><p>Then there was some nonsense about him going on ahead alone. Fan Xian had kind of expected that – Beiqi had lost the war, after all; they would surely be taking any and every chance they could to intimidate those from Qing.</p><p>So, it was simply him and Shen Zhong left to climb the endless staircase up the palace. Along the way, he let his mind wonder: did the elderly have trouble climbing these stairs? Did Beiqi have no older officials? Were people from the Jianghu who had an audience with the Emperor allowed to use qing’gong up, or did they have to walk? Was there a rule against using zhen qi in the vicinity of the palace here in Beiqi like there was an edict forbidding any use of such arts in the Nanqing palace?</p><p>So many questions. So many inconsequential answers. Ah, he was finally here.</p><p>The first impression he had of Beiqi's Emperor was that the epithet "Little" really did describe him well: he was utterly dwarfed by the golden throne he was sitting on.</p><p>"This foreign official pays his respects," he called out, ducking his head down, "to the Emperor of Beiqi, and offers His Majesty the Nanqing Emperor's handwritten proof of his identity." He folded his legs to kneel.</p><p>A eunuch came down and took the box and tray holding said proof of identity away to the Emperor. Fan Xian could finally lower his arms; he'd been carrying the thing up those million of steps because the Shen Zhong asshole had refused the others' entry. It had been heartwarming to see Gao Da's and Wang Qinian's concern at him going alone; Xie Bi'an had looked as carved from stone as the steps themselves. Probably hoping in his heart of hearts that Fan Xian would break an ankle while climbing.</p><p>Xie Bi'an was the absolute cutest. He was going to ask him to try to qing'gong his way up the steps next time and see where, precisely, Xie Bi'an was going to tell him to shove it.</p><p>(Yeah, Bi'an still hadn't forgiven him for the rut-drug. Even when he'd <i>explained</i> it was just adrenaline!)</p><p>He folded his hands back into the familiar Qing salute, allowing his aching arms to relax, and waited for the Emperor to read his credentials. Then he would announce he could have their spy back, and then this entire trip could <i>end</i> and he could, well, go the fuck home.</p><p>"Young Master Fan," the emperor said in a high treble voice completely and wholly <i>incongruous</i> his— oh no, it's <i>her</i> appearance, "have you published your next chapter yet?"</p><p>Fan Xian's gaze jerked up and stared. Wait... what?</p><p>Luckily, he wasn't the only one reacting that way: susurrations of whispers filled the receiving hall, and Fan Xian could practically feel the air getting heavier with disapproval. He watched, curious despite himself, as the Little Emperor didn't seem to budge at all from his – her? Was Fan Xian allowed to refer to her as 'her' in his own head? – place or question, instead dismissing his – her??? – officials as if their opinions didn't quite matter to him (her???????).</p><p>He was glad, he supposed, that he was dismissed, except he was called to <i>stay behind</i> to <i>chit-chat</i> and now given permission to approach the throne. He kept his eyes down, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could save him from nearly tripping from the steps when he was near enough.</p><p>Beiqi's Little Emperor wasn't a beta man like he had been briefed. Neither was she a beta woman. No, she was an <i>omega girl</i>, smelling of a mix between begonias and hyacinths, gentle and sweetly teasing at his nose as she stood up and spoke to her mother. The Empress Dowager, Fan Xian reminded himself, frantically trying to turn his brain back to the purpose of his presence here. The Little Emperor's mother. Who was fighting with her daughter (son???? Was he supposed to think of her as a him??) for power in Beiqi.</p><p>His head hurt. He wanted to go home.</p><p>(Wait, Si Lili was going to be in the Emperor's harem. She was an omega girl, the Emperor was an omega girl, and this was real life, not one of Gao Da's trashy novels!)</p><p>His own words to Gao Da and Wang Qinian from not a few days ago echoed in his mind: <i>There's <b>nowhere</b> in <b>Qing</b> that an omega, let alone a <b>male</b> omega, can take the Throne.</i></p><p>Fan Xian was basically choking on his own words because. Because. An omega girl.</p><p>Maybe, he thought as his little brain hamster ran around in hysterical circles, they just did things differently in Beiqi. Hadn't they said something about how omegas were just a little more plentiful on the ground in Beiqi? Or something??</p><p>Did omegas inherit like this instead of getting dowered out?</p><p>Was this one of Wang Qinian's, "exists and doesn't exist" at once, or just Gao Da's trash novels and the Little Emperor was actually an Alpha woman?</p><p>(but no, there was no way that the Little Emperor was an Alpha woman, no way could the sweet omega scent be hidden, and she wasn't even covered in Alpha mated scent.)</p><p><i>And</i>, as the Empress Dowager came out to ... what, talk at her son— her daughter— her <i>offspring</i>, trailing behind the beta woman was a familiar Alpha scent.</p><p>Haitang Duoduo, as demure as that great personage could be, came out behind the Empress Dowager and Fan Xian was going to fling himself off the steps right now, good<i>bye</i>.</p><p>There was something desperately <i>strange</i> about the scene in front of him, Fan Xian's brain shrieked as his mouth went through some basic motions in reply to the Empress Dowager. Three women in front of him: Alpha, beta, and omega, and the omega was standing right in front – metaphorically, right now the Little Emperor had stashed herself to the side so her (honestly, he gave up) mother could examine Fan Xian like he was a frog pinned to a board – to take any arrows fired in her direction, and the Alpha stood at the back as if she was being sheltered.</p><p>At least, Fan Xian thought wryly to himself, the beta was still in the middle.</p><p>He had been in Beiqi's palace for all of ten minutes and his head had already been turned upside down, and all he wanted to do was to crawl into the nearest inn or place of residence or, even better, dark hole and beat his thoughts up until they made some sense.</p><p>Unfortunately, however, he actually had to talk to the Beiqi Emperor now. With Haitang Duoduo as their chaperone.</p><p>Great.</p><p>Haitang Duoduo, who still thought he was a shameless despicable immoral asshole.</p><p>He <i>had</i> met her again enroute, but he'd <i>tried</i> to explain it was just adrenaline it was <i>just</i> to get her out of the way, it wasn't like her rut had <i>really</i> been triggered right? Right?!</p><p>But she still wouldn't stop calling him shameless and terrible to his face in front of Beiqi’s Little Emperor.</p><p>His reputation was smeared all over the place not just in Beiqi's Jianghu, but <i>also</i> to the Beiqi royalty.</p><p>The Qing Emperor was going to <i>hear</i> this now, which was two skips and a step away from <i>Wan'er</i> hearing it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Maybe, Fan Xian thought later, he could blame his disconcertion over the Beiqi Emperor's unexpected sex and caste – and even more surprising lack of attempt to hide either, because she didn't bother tying her hair up like a beta, like the Second Prince had – on how easily he fell into her verbal traps. But he suspected that he would've been led around by her and Haitang Duoduo until his nose hurt and his nostrils tripled in size even without that.</p><p>"The affairs of Beiqi," he sighed theatrically, "are in fact messy and dangerous."</p><p>"Indeed," the Beiqi Emperor said, a smile lilting up one corner of her mouth. "But would you say the affairs of Nanqing are any different?"</p><p>Fan Xian opened his mouth. Closed it. "Am I," he said weakly, "allowed to mention it?"</p><p>Her eyebrow lifted. "Are you allowed to mention to me the reason why the Nanqing Emperor's future son-in-law, the Second Prince's future husband, is travelling with your party?" She folded her hands behind her back, and her smile curved up a little wider. "Or the true reason why the Second Prince is even competing for the throne in the first place?"</p><p>"What?" Fan Xian croaked out. "I— how do you— <i>what?</i>"</p><p>"Oh," the Beiqi Emperor blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "You don't know." She lifted her hand, and tapped her bottom lip with a look at Fan Xian that spoke eloquently about how much she wanted to laugh at him. "I suppose it's the kind of knowledge that only omegas could grasp, even if they are separate by great distances and incompatible interests." Her hand dropped back to her side, and she grinned.</p><p>"And here I thought Nanqing's God of Poetry is terribly clever enough to understand everything."</p><p>Fan Xian stared at her for a moment.</p><p>The Emperor, and even Haitang Duoduo, were looking at him like he was some sort of laughingstock, and yeah normally he wouldn't mind this, because being underestimated was a very useful tool, but usually he at least had <i>some</i> understanding.</p><p>He knew what Xie Bi'an was here for – though he had had to get yelled at a lot to figure it out.</p><p>But the Second Prince had a <i>true</i> reason for the throne? Was it not akin to Chen Pingping's reason, the attempt for political control and thus freedom? Like Si Lili's tragic wish?</p><p>"I would never dare to claim such understanding of the world," Fan Xian said, folding his hands in the Qing mode of salute, knowing that the Emperor found even <i>this</i> amusing. "Whoever told you so had to have been lying."</p><p>"Then blame your poems, for it was they that told me," the Beiqi Emperor said. "They cover such breadth of topics and such depth of emotion that I truly thought that you had looked upon the world and wrapped your fingers around it."</p><p>When he had gotten drunk and reeled off almost half of the <i>Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty</i>, he had not expected it to come bite him in the ass like this. In fact, he had been very, very sure he hadn't gone and quoted any omega poets – so really this shouldn't be biting him in the ass at all.</p><p>He had thought the <i>Dream of Red Mansions</i> had been bad enough, with Ruoruo insisting on ascribing it to him, but the whole poetry thing...</p><p>Nevermind, nevermind, shove that aside with his rapidly declining stature in the Beiqi Emperor's gaze. He couldn't even call her "Little", not like this – she was not just literate, she was <i>learned</i>, words too lyrical not to have four layers of meaning to her every gesture.</p><p>Beiqi might have strong links to their Jianghu, but by every god in the heavens their traditional focus in the literary arts was no joke at all.</p><p>"Never mind," the Beiqi Emperor said, shaking her head as she returned back to her seat. "It's not necessary for you to have the world in your palm."</p><p>"Not necessary," Fan Xian repeated, glad to be back on familiar ground, "for your purposes, Your Majesty?"</p><p>"Precisely," the Beiqi Emperor smiled at him over her tiny golden teacup. "In fact, it might be better if you know a little less." She sipped her tea and placed the cup back down with a small <i>clink</i> of precious metal against metal.</p><p>"Get rid of Shen Zhong for me."</p><p>"I am happy that my ignorance might serve your Majesty," Fan Xian said. "Wait. What."</p><p>Shen Zhong was the Empress Dowager's man. A smiling sociopath whose face <i>begged</i> for an arrow to be put through it.</p><p>The kind of person Fan Xian really didn't want to get closer to, because he was insanely loyal to the Empress Dowager, and for fuck's sake, Fan Xian had <i>no one</i> in Beiqi besides just that one guy from the Jianghu who might be helpful.</p><p>He didn't even have access to the Investigative Bureau's true spy network.</p><p>Taking out a loyal official in <i>Qing</i> hadn't been... well it hadn't been <i>easy</i>, but he had watched and helped and observed Chen Pingping do just that.</p><p>But what was Fan Xian supposed to do to take out a man who had his <i>own</i> equivalent of the Investigative Bureau!?</p><p>"Kill Shen Zhong," the Emperor repeated, her tone hinting that she was being patient with him now. "The Head of the Brocaded Guards. The man who brought you here."</p><p>Beside them, Haitang Duoduo made a sound like she was choking on laughter.</p><p>"I kind of know who he is," Fan Xian said, trying not to sound like a gasping goldfish. He should never have offered to get in bed with any of these factions.</p><p>... Oh lord he didn't want to think of bed and the Emperor of Beiqi in the same breath. Si Lili was <i>very</i> safe with her, he was suddenly very sure.</p><p>"And...?" the Emperor prompted.</p><p>"I," Fan Xian barely resisted the urge to throw up his hands. "Ah, yes, I will help you kill Shen Zhong. I, a foreigner from Nanqing, will murder him, and it can't be traced back to Your Majesty. Then Your Majesty will sentence and execute me for killing your loyal Beiqi official, and I will never get to return home." He dropped his head back. "Such a good bargain this is."</p><p>Haitang Duoduo leaned over and picked up a lychee, her presence practically causing him to overbalance on the stool.</p><p>For fuck's sake. She was definitely laughing at him.</p><p>"Is that to say," The Emperor inquired mildly, "the Young Master Fan is unwilling?"</p><p>Fan Xian folded his arms, tipping his head back. "and why wouldn't I be unwilling? Why would I want to help you?"</p><p>"A sense of safety," the Beiqi Emperor said. Fan Xian had barely stopped himself from slamming his face against the tabletop when she continued, taking the lychee from Haitang Duoduo's hand, "Not for me, of course; I can make my own. But for those under my charge."</p><p>White teeth bit down on the lychee's white flesh, tearing off a strip. "Like you have observed yourself, the current situation in Beiqi is messy and dangerous. Terrible for everyone involved." When she smiled, she was looking at him from under her lashes. "In the very first poem you wrote, you had a line: Through the sufferance of troubled times, you regret the white of your temples." She pointedly gazed at his clearly richly black hair. "Frustrated at its endless continuation, you abandoned your cup of wine."</p><p>Her finger flicked his teacup a little closer. "The peace of Beiqi is to Nanqing's detriment, that is true," she said, "but the peace of Beiqi also guarantees the safety of all those in it."</p><p>She finished the lychee, and delicately dropped the seed on an empty saucer at the side.</p><p>This, he realised, wasn't just a dangerous Emperor.</p><p>This was the first time he'd seen...</p><p>The Second Prince was far more like his little sister Ruoruo than he had first realised; far more inclined to tease, utilize his frivolity as a smokescreen than anything else. Si Lili was a spy, yes, and really, he hadn't thought he could understand her characterisation of Chen Pingping as "weaponizing his caste". Si Lili <i>specialised</i> in using her softness, her desirability, to gather information after all. She'd allowed herself to be tortured for her own reasons in that Hall of Justice.</p><p>When Fan Xian thought of weaponising the omega caste, that was what he thought of, just… <i>more</i>.</p><p>But now?</p><p>Now he was staring at the Emperor, turning "his" words back to him, deliberately using the Qing terms for Beiqi and the Beiqi term for Qing in the same sentence, equalizing it, equating the not just the two countries, but that <i>her</i> idea of safety encompassed a country.</p><p>And not just a personal safety – but for the <i>country</i>. And she was perfectly willing to use that instinctual need <i>Fan Xian</i> had to provide said safety.</p><p>By quoting his own words, by using Qing's own terms, she put them on the same level, and thrown the idea of peace between the countries, stability within her own, into Fan Xian's hands and responsibility.</p><p><i>Here,</i> she was basically saying with a gentle, soft smile, <i>you can help make me safe</i>.</p><p>Fan Xian didn't quite choke, but he stared at her, wordless and—</p><p>She was definitely smiling at him.</p><p>She already knew his answer.</p><p>Because, to an Alpha like him, there was only one answer.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>we do, indeed, think we are very funny.</p><p>if nothing else, this chapter amused us both <i>hugely</i></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>well. </p><p>everything in beiqi goes swimmingly. </p><p>at least fan xian thinks so.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'll post the shorter epilogue tomorrow maybe, and then wednesday has the next fic start. :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Beiqi was dangerous as hell.</p><p>He Daoren turned out to have owed Chen Pingping some sort of favour – neither Xie Bi'an nor He Daoren were willing to elaborate – and thus was, because of said favour, willing to help them the absolute bare minimum of 'delivering messages'.</p><p>Fan Xian had made the amateur mistake of asking if He Daoren had purposefully lost to Xie Bi'an, and then Xie Bi'an had instantly challenged He Daoren for a rematch.</p><p>This, fortunately, didn't harm their... uh, case, if you could call it that. He Daoren and Xie Bi'an having a very Jianghu match in the middle of Beiqi's capital was apparently a thing Jianghu just <i>did</i>, and considering their respective loyalties, completely and utterly expected.</p><p>It meant that Fan Xian had had to sit there for half a day while the two of them battled it out with very pretty swordplay and fancy footwork that miraculously only resulted in two broken roof tiles and one cracked pavement stone.</p><p>And they fought to a draw.</p><p>Good job. Put three alphas in a room,  Fan Xian thought sourly, and things got done by the betas outside anyway.</p><p>Respect established and reputation saved on both sides, He Daoren was assigned by Shen Zhong to spy on and report on Fan Xian's movements – which was convenient. If he wanted to get Shen Zhong's eyes off him for a while he could just send Xie Bi'an and He Daoren to fight for a bit.</p><p>He didn't have many resources, but he did what he could: he sent Wang Qinian to go poke at the accounts of the Beiqi branch of the Neiku (which he really hadn't realised would exist here and pretty much as an open secret but apparently, the truism 'money is a universal language' held true even in most patriotic of Beiqi). Guo Baokun was put to use; one of the most... well he couldn't call him utterly useless, but he was a bit of a pathetic puppy, and even <i>this</i>was useful, distracting the too-clever Shen Zhong from Fan Xian's attempts at finding out what was going on with Yan Bingyun, their erstwhile, missing, and now probably tortured for Qing secrets spy. He even got to use Gao Da to beat up every challenger in Beiqi who hated the Qing delegates' guts; so all the alphas were happy.</p><p>A couple of days of investigation and messing about, resulted in Fan Xian getting to harass Shangsan Hu in person, <i>avoid</i> getting stabbed by his lieutenant for putting hands on him — he was absolutely right about the whole aphrodisiac story spreading through Beiqi at breakneck pace — both the Grand General and his lieutenant looked like they wanted to punt Fan Xian straight out of the country with a catapult.</p><p>But it was all for a good cause — he definitely verified how irritatingly stalwart Shen Zhong was. And eventually he used Haitang Duoduo as the secret cavalry no one expected to pry Yan Bingyun out of his hands.</p><p>Which, yay mission accomplished, right until Yan Bingyun, a spy akin to those of the Cold-fucking-war and apparently part-time accountant, discovered from the account books of the actual secret-not-secret branch of the Qing's moneymaker that there was some embezzling going on. <i>Huge</i> amounts. And that Shen Zhong was involved somehow, and the right bastard wouldn't <i>tell</i> Fan Xian who that money was going <i>to</i>.</p><p>Couple <i>that</i> with his promise to kill the fucker, he had to utilize the only stick he had left.</p><p>Grand General Shangsan Hu. And the only way to get <i>him</i> to move was to use the creepy old man Xiao En.</p><p>So that's what he had to do.</p><p>Stage an escape for the old man (again), let Shangsan Hu get him out.</p><p>......</p><p>And then it kinda went... sideways.</p><p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p><p>The thing was, Fan Xian thought, he really did still think of Xiao En as a creepy old man.</p><p>And who could blame him for that? The first impression he received of the guy was of him practically committing verbal sexual assault on the Chairman of the Investigative Bureau. Then, later, Xiao En had stated that the Chairman had asked for it because he was an <i>omega slut</i>, as if there was anything an omega could do that could force an Alpha to treat them like they were lower than trash, like Xiao En constantly talked about the Chairman.</p><p>Fan Xian could chalk all that up as Xiao En having some sort of strange unrequited lust for Chen Pingping that he had never been able to resolve, but then the man kept talking about Danzhou, had refused to kill him, and had <i>looked</i> at him with some sort of strange, intent interest that made Fan Xian's skin crawl.</p><p>Getting the explanation that Xiao En thought Fan Xian was his grandson did <i>not</i> help matters at all. He would really rather leave this cave to find Shangshan Hu to get him to pick up his sworn father. Or, well, to pick up his corpse, given that there was no way to stop Xiao En from dying.</p><p>Lang Tao was vicious where his junior Haitang Duoduo was not, and he was <i>obedient</i> to his Shifu's orders of murder Xiao En ASAP. </p><p>"After I was caught," Xiao En continued, voice heavy with a sort of sorrow that dragged Fan Xian out of his disdainful thoughts, "the only thing that kept me going was the thought of my bloodline."</p><p>He wasn't looking at Fan Xian, wasn't even glancing at him. But Fan Xian could hear the unspoken words anyway: <i>the thought of you</i>.</p><p>This was... he hadn't any words to describe it. Especially when Xiao En practically all but told him that he refused to tell his massive secret and suffered for decades in the dungeons of the Investigative Bureau purely to keep Fan Xian safe. Or, well, to keep his <i>grandson</i> safe, but, to Xiao En right now, that was the same thing.</p><p>"But your son and his wife and your grandson were killed, you just said so." And so did everyone else in the Investigative bureau. <i>Shifu</i> had said so.</p><p>"Chen Pingping is the sort of vindictive <i>bitch</i>," Xiao En said, spitting a little. "I apologise. But he is the sort who would remember those who wronged him, and is willing to plot and wait for a decade, two decades, for it to come to fruition. I broke his legs."</p><p>He glanced up to Fan Xian, and that was probably his attempt at a grandfatherly smile. "You don't know his reputation, other than his— <i>ways</i>. He was always clever. But vindictive.  He was always exceptionally proud of how <i>fast</i> he was."</p><p>That was not the reputation he had been told of Chen Pingping but... well it wasn't like Fan Xian had known the Chairman before.</p><p>"I broke his legs. He promised to pay that back." Xiao En sighed heavily, his breaths starting to slow measurably. "Before my son married. He had. An affair."</p><p>And there, that was that whole lurid story coming out – an affair with a beta prostitute, and the child had been hidden away, by the nefarious, vindictive, vengeful Chen Pingping – who had promised Xiao En that the child was not only alive, but also brought up in Qing to be loyal, only to Qing.</p><p>That such a child would thus be brought forward to kill Xiao En – what a grand revenge!</p><p>Fan Xian thought that the old man had definitely read too much trash novels. Or maybe he was an author of one of them. It was too ludicrous to be true. But Xiao En believed it; he'd come to that conclusion <i>himself</i>, and those kinds of truths were the hardest to disprove. </p><p>"What is this great secret that Chen Pingping," Fan Xian said, trying to mentally apologise to the Chairman for that kind of disrespectful thought; just being in the same room with Xiao En made his skin crawl and feel completely disrespectful to the Chairman by proxy, "would have wanted to keep you jailed up for though? All these years, telling you this, but wanting a secret from you? By now it has to be out of date."</p><p>"No," Xiao En said, and there was a small smile on his lips that almost seemed triumphant. "The secret I keep has no due date, because it is of a place, and a person." He lifted his head, and met Fan Xian's eyes through the matted curtain of his own hair. "Have you ever heard of the Temple of the Gods?"</p><p>Fan Xian had. It had always been one of those things that had never really made sense to him: there was the veneration of one's elders, but no ancestor worship; there were no temples, no Buddhas, no Pang Gu who cleaved the Earth from the Heavens, no Nüwa who made the clay figures who became the first humans, no Shennong who tasted a thousand herbs and created the first medical textbook. The dynastic histories wrote nothing of the Yellow Emperor's defeat of Chiyou that established China among the Central Plains. Hell, there wasn't even a <i>China</i>, much less a Central Plains!</p><p>There had only been the Temple of the Gods. A mythical place, Fan Xian had once heard, that no one could reach, but from which the gods themselves would step down to their Earth.</p><p>"Yes," he said finally, realising that Xiao En had been waiting for him to answer. "But no one is said to have ever seen it."</p><p>"I have," Xiao En said.</p><p>"Where?"</p><p>"North," Xiao En murmured. "All the way to the northern edge of the world.”</p><p>Part of Fan Xian wanted to dismiss this as nonsense. But, if he was guessing correctly, the Chairman had spent twenty years feeding Xiao En bits and pieces of information so that Xiao En would believe that Fan Xian was his grandson. He had spent all that time keeping Xiao En in the dungeon, feeding Xiao En's beliefs that he was a bitch, and even given up on seeking vengeance for his broken legs for this secret. The very least Fan Xian could do, he thought, was to listen to it.</p><p>(<i>Weaponising his caste,</i> Si Lili had said of the Chairman. The words haunted Fan Xian now, and he thought, that was the least of it. The Chairman weaponised <i>everything</i>: his injuries, Xiao En's understanding of him... Hadn't Xiao En said that the Chairman used to walk the battlefield without ever masking his scent?</p><p>He was dangerous, Fan Xian knew. He should fear him, should dislike him. He should, at the very least, listen to his father Fan Jian and be wary of him. Because Chen Pingping was akin to the Buddha in that story about the Monkey King: no matter how far the Monkey King ran, he still could not escape the palm of the Buddha's hand.</p><p>But Fan Xian <i>couldn't</i>. Whenever he thought of the Chairman, he recalled a soft, comforting voice, a sharp musk with sweet daffodils underneath, and the desperate urge to sit by his feet and place his head on his lap. It made absolutely no sense.)</p><p>"There were a thousand of us who first started out on the journey,” Xiao En said, voice going softer. Fan Xian had to lean in to listen to the story.</p><p>And it was a <i>story</i>, something fantastical about an Emperor of Beiqi who had sought immortality and thus sent his men off to find the Temple of the Gods. It brought to mind the legends he had once heard about the very first Emperor of China, Qin Shihuang. But the story was very different here, because it wasn’t a group of unknowns who sought to fulfil the Emperor’s desire, but Xiao En and the Grandmaster Ku He, though both of them were young at the time, and without fame.</p><p>Another difference: unlike Qin Shihuang’s doomed soldiers, Xiao En and Ku He <i>did</i> find the Temple of the Gods. The other nine hundred and ninety-eight of their comrades all died from cold and hunger, and these two only survived because of – Fan Xian suspected from Xiao En’s roundabout attempts to explain – cannibalism.</p><p>But they did find it: a temple so huge and beyond their understanding, that they for their human small meanness, could never touch…</p><p>Fan Xian’s breath was stuck in his throat when Xiao En told him that the door <i>opened</i>. Then, he said, an Alpha girl stepped up. A young one, with her hair in a strange beta style. And she’d called herself:</p><p>Ye Qingmei.</p><p>Fan Xian's mother. His old woman was a literal <i>god</i> who had descended from the Temple of the Gods, and—</p><p>Wait.</p><p>“Alpha?” Fan Xian asked. “Are you <i>sure</i>?”</p><p>"Of course," Xiao En said. "A god like her – she could only be the rarest of Alphas, the female Alpha who could do anything."</p><p>Well, Fan Xian thought, that confirmed what he had suspected for long years. Ever since he heard, by chance, from his grandmother’s old groundskeeper that his father was a beta man, he had suspected that his mother was an Alpha woman. Because if his <i>father</i> was a beta man, then his wife would only be a beta woman – unless he managed to snag an omega, but that was incredibly rare with the odds so low that they weren’t worth considering – and two betas had never managed to beget an Alpha.</p><p>For him to be an Alpha, he had to have an Alpha parent. So, he had, for a very long time, suspected that his father wasn’t his father at all, but his mother, while his mother was actually his father.</p><p>Because Alpha women could not bear children, while beta men could.</p><p>(Alpha women only <i>looked</i> like beta or omega women on the outside; their insides were entirely different, practically identical to Alpha men. That was why caste ranked higher than sex when it came to marriage: sex was the outward appearance, while caste determined what one’s biology was capable of. In essence, it was caste that decided who could continue a line, and who could bear the next child.</p><p>The world had always modelled itself after the majority, and those were the betas. Beta men could bear children, but only for Alphas. Beta women could impregnate, but only omegas. As a result, beta men tended to be shoved into the role of fathers, while beta women took on that of mothers.</p><p>Hence, Alpha women and omega men were treasured. They might look like their beta equivalents, but they performed the opposite role – the epitome of the inner beauty shining through a common cover.)</p><p>Omega men were rarest of them all, yes, and thus the most delicate, the most treasured, the most desirable. But Alpha women were famed for doing the impossible: just look at Haitang Duoduo, straddling the Jianghu and politics with ease, traversing the world how she wanted without care for the expectations of others for her to choose a path. As an Alpha woman, she <i>didn’t</i> have to choose.</p><p>It was good, Fan Xian thought, to have confirmation that Ye Qingmei was a female Alpha. It made perfect sense with the way she had broken so many expectations of society, that she didn’t care that she had come from an earlier time. What was it that Uncle Wu Zhu had said once? She was the beginning and the end, the rarest of all Alphas.</p><p>And it explained why he had been stowed in Danzhou for most of his life. Fan Jian could easily bear the shame of having an illegitimate child – look at Prime Minister Lin and the Princess – but it was so much more difficult when Fan Xian was an Alpha, which meant that Fan Jian, a male beta, had borne the child himself. </p><p>Though, surely it couldn’t be <i>that</i> humiliating, given that an Alpha woman had chosen him to be her mate?</p><p>—Wait, Xiao En was still talking.</p><p>"She gave Ku He a book,” the old man sighed out, “that made him a Grandmaster. She looked at me, and said I would never achieve it." His next exhale was laboured and sounded a little wet. It wouldn’t be long now, Fan Xian thought, and felt a mild stab of regret. “She was right. She could look at a man and know the future.”</p><p>He chuckled, shaking his head. “Yet even a god like that could have her heart touched.” His lips twitched up. “She married into Nanqing’s Imperial family.”</p><p>Wait, <i>what</i>?— Fan Xian’s brain screeched to a halt. He had only <i>just</i> made sense of his birth!</p><p>“Nanqing is truly fortunate,” Xiao En continued, apparently unaware of the rising pitch of Fan Xian’s mental scream. “It’s a pity that my Great Qi never had such luck.”</p><p>“What…” Fan Xian barely managed to choke out. “What are you saying? You’re saying—” He stood up before he knew what he was doing. “You said that she became—”</p><p>“A wife of the Nanqing Imperial family,” Xiao En finished, nodding slowly.</p><p>“You’ve got to be mistaken!” His mother— Ye Qingmei was an Alpha, and Alphas couldn’t— they—</p><p>“Very few know about this,” Xiao En said, shaking his head. “But I was the head of Beiqi’s spy network at the time; very little of Nanqing escaped my notice.”</p><p>A small, but rather pertinent detail of creepy old-man he thought someone ought to have mentioned before. No wonder the Investigative Bureau had kept this man alive for so long: he was the opposing spy-master. Holy shit. </p><p>“Who did she,” Fan Xian asked, mind whirling, “who did she marry?”</p><p>“A King,” Xiao En murmured. “That is to say, the current Emperor of Nanqing.”</p><p>“She—” Fan Xian choked out. “She became the Nanqing Emperor’s wife?”</p><p>“Mm,” Xiao En nodded, and he seemed rather amused at Fan Xian’s sudden spike of interest in this part of his story. “And I even knew that she gave the Nanqing Emperor a child.” He let out a sigh. “That’s all I know of the matter.”</p><p>“Wait,” Fan Xian said, half-falling, half-sitting back down. “You said that she was an Alpha. And Alphas can’t—"</p><p>His old woman might have come from a technologically-advanced past. She might have been able to survive being cryogenically frozen for centuries. But there was breaking natural laws, and <i>breaking</i> nature's laws. No matter what one could do, biology was biology and unless she was a literal alien (and his mother's letter had said that this was still the same world and had to obey the same laws), <i>Alpha women could not bear children.</i></p><p>And everyone knew that the Nanqing Emperor was an Alpha. One of the strongest, fiercest, and most virile Alphas Fan Xian had ever met. Someone whose scent smacked him right in between the eyes even when he smelled it secondhand on the Chairman.</p><p>“She’s an Alpha,” Xiao En nodded, smiling at Fan Xian like he thought his indignance was amusing. “And she bore the Nanqing Emperor a bastard child. She’s a god. She can do anything.”</p><p>No, Fan Xian thought wildly. No, she <i>couldn’t</i>. Biology just didn’t work that way!</p><p>Five minutes after thinking that his existence made sense, it now made absolutely <i>no</i> sense whatsoever. Not only was he the Emperor’s bastard – a bastard of a bastard, he thought a little hysterically – he was a literal biological impossibility. </p><p>He couldn't— <i>shouldn't</i>— exist! </p><p>While Fan Xian was processing that (not, he was not processing <i>shit</i>), Xiao En sighed again, this time definitely a lot wetter, weaker.</p><p>"I've told you the great secret," he murmured. "Not even Chen Pingping knows this. If he knew about Ye Qingmei's bastard, he doesn't know how she managed to do it. Nor where she came from."</p><p>He smiled at Fan Xian, and he wasn't really focusing, not anymore. </p><p>It wouldn't make sense for the Chairman <i>not</i> to know where Ye Qingmei came from, because the chairman hadn't seemed at all surprised that Fan Xian espoused her same strange values that were so out of sync with this world. Or that Uncle Wu Zhu was around. </p><p>"That's… some secret," Fan Xian said, weakly, because the quiet was expectant. </p><p>"I don't… want you to seek revenge," Xiao En said, quietly, so quietly it was barely a breath now. "Live. Keep the line alive. Tell… my older brother Zhuang Mohan—" the great scholar Zhuang Mohan who had tried to claim that Fan Xian had plagiarized his teacher – it seemed so long ago, ".. that I have gone." </p><p>He shifted, a little, glancing to the cave entrance. "Take me to the sun. I don't… want to be underground." </p><p>And Fan Xian couldn't not grant a dying request. </p><p>So he'd done that. He had sat with the man till he breathed his last. </p><p>And it was a little funny, Fan Xian thought as he reached out to close those blank, staring eyes, but it was really difficult to look at Xiao En now and think him to be nothing more than a creepy old man.</p><p>He was grateful. If not for Xiao En, who would have told him the truth about the impossibility of his existence?</p><p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p><p>With the location of Xiao En's body and the news that his death had been caused by Shen Zhong, Fan Xian bought Shangsan Hu's loyalty for long enough to leverage Shen Zhong out of the Beiqi's Empress Dowager's confidence. </p><p>Humiliated and wrecked by what he could clearly see was a danger to Beiqi, Shen Zhong tried to have him killed. </p><p>Fan Xian couldn't blame the man. He had been a danger, yes, and someone who had been so powerful it had been hard to leverage around him. But Fan Xian was a foreigner with nothing to lose in Beiqi, and in a way his disadvantage of being loyal to <i>no one</i> in Beiqi meant he could move <i>everywhere</i>, while Shen Zhong's loyalty had been, has always been, to his country. </p><p>The tragedy, he thought as he stared Shen Zhong down, the man surrounded by the Emperor's men, the men <i>Si Lili</i> had brought with her own presence, and utilized for <i>Fan Xian</i>, though she was nowhere to be seen, of loyal Alphas, was how <i>easy</i> it was to cut them down, when you looked at it the right way. </p><p>And the omega's power, utilized for the ones or ideals they'd chosen, was so dangerous, that even Fan Xian couldn't have seen it coming. </p><p>And thus Shen Zhong died, giving to Qing his beloved only sister, because in the end he tried to save what his loyalty could not, and Fan Xian's promise and mission was complete. </p><p>But it couldn't have been that simple. Fan Xian had genuinely, honestly thought that this damned mission was easy – give one person in exchange for another – but of <i>course</i> it hadn't been.</p><p>Because to save his sister, Shen Zhong had finally told him that the person embezzling the funds from Beiqi's branch of the Neiku had been the combined forces of the Princess and <i>the Second Prince</i>. The Princess, Fan Xian realised with dawning horror, had never been siding with the Crown Prince at all, but with the Second Prince.</p><p>It made sense, he thought distantly to himself. He had always wondered why she liked the Crown Prince so much when he had always seemed a little dumb. Seemed like she had been playing on both sides, being an ally to both Princes so that whoever succeeded the throne would owe her favours.</p><p>But that also meant that the Second Prince had a hand in the assassinations that went on on Niulan Street. And he realised this right as he felt Xie Bi'an's gaze right between his shoulder blades.</p><p>"Did you—" he let out a shuddering breath. "Did you know?"</p><p>Xie Bi'an didn't say anything. He stepped forward instead.</p><p>About to stab him, Fan Xian thought, waiting for the sound of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. It would be the last sound he'd ever heard, because Xie Bi'an's only mercy would be <i>letting</i> him hear it, he was that quick.</p><p>This entire time, Fan Xian had thought that Xie Bi'an had thawed to him, perhaps. Maybe Xie Bi'an would not have liked him as much as Fan Xian liked <i>him</i>, but he'd thought that they had come to some sort of understanding.</p><p>There was a rustle of... paper?</p><p>"My Prince," Xie Bi'an said, instead of stabbing Fan Xian through the heart, "had prepared a letter for both Your Excellency, and Young Master Yan."</p><p>When Fan Xian turned around, shocked and surprised, Xie Bi'an held out the letters to them – two letters, clearly addressed in the Second Prince's handwriting.</p><p>It was, Fan Xian thought distantly, a delicate, beautiful hand, befitting someone who had been brought up in the palace and had excellent tutors all their life.</p><p>"My Prince said," Xie Bi'an said, and his face was void of all emotion. "you should read it together."</p><p>Was that something hard in the corner of his eyes, Fan Xian wondered, or was that an illusion caused by the flickering shadows cast by the campfire? He didn't know. He couldn't be sure.</p><p>He took the letter with numb fingers. "Let's," he said, slanting his eyes somewhere to Yan Bingyun's chin, "open our letters together."</p><p>"Alright," the beta man replied and, wonders of all wonders, actually sat down on the rock next to the campire. Xie Bi'an, of course, didn't move at all, standing still like the rock or iceberg he so often resembled.</p><p>Fan Xian handed Yan Bingyun his letter, and then opened his own.</p><blockquote>
  <p>To write is to meet, to read is to listen. Our parting in the capital makes me miss you all the more.</p>
  <p>Those within a family know what happens within it, and I'm the lazy sort. Things are already enough of a mess, so let's get to the main point, shall we?</p>
  <p>Fan Xian, by now, you should know what I have done in the Capital. But how should I put it?</p>
  <p>To be a child of the Imperial family is the most difficult thing in the world. Children always fight. In other families, to lose is to lose a future, an inheritance, a reputation. With an imperial son, you lose your life. If I lose, I lose my body, my autonomy, and my right to not live drugged out of my mind. You might not believe me, but I know best how the Crown Prince, my dear brother, looks at me. How his nostrils flare whenever he catches my scent.</p>
  <p>Even if I might wish otherwise, this is a game I cannot afford not to play, and this is a fight I cannot afford to lose.</p>
</blockquote>Fan Xian's hands trembled. He nearly dropped the letter as he scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over Yan Bingyun in his rush to get to Xie Bi'an.<p>"Is it true?" he hissed. "What he said here about—" he swallowed hard but he could feel bile at the back of his throat, and he wrenched himself away from Xie Bi'an and lurched towards the fire, dry-heaving over it.</p><p>Yan Bingyun was staring at him; Fan Xian had no mind to care.</p><p>The Crown Prince... looked at his own <i>brother</i> like that... like.</p><p>That was so many— he wasn't even sure the word was taboo could encompass <i>all</i> of it.</p><p>He found it hard to understand how people would be so eager to serve and be subservient; when given a chance to live their own lives, they would be so terrified they had no idea how to start.</p><p>But there were some things that were true, all the way forever. Just like how there were biological laws, there were just...</p><p>Some things couldn't be <i>done</i>. Were just – <i>wrong</i>.</p><p>For one, the Crown Prince was a beta and the Second Prince was an omega. That was by itself a taboo that might, if one squinted real hard, barely pass as almost acceptable. But omegas were so rare, no beta should even think of lusting after one. The omega was not theirs to <i>have</i>. The Second Prince, a rarer still male omega, should have been a target for <i>protection</i>, not one for <i>lust</i>.</p><p>They were <i>brothers</i>. They shared the same <i>father</i>. And, seeing that it was well known that the Eldest Prince got along just fine with the Second, there was no reason for this fact to be fundamentally <i>unknown</i> to the Crown Prince. He should <i>know</i> and feel only fraternal affection for his brother!</p><p>And putting <i>that</i> yet aside, Fan Xian’s thoughts continued spiralling hysterically, the Second Prince had clearly chosen Xie Bi'an as his Alpha, as his <i>mate</i>. For the Second Prince to still need to fight when he already had a mate meant that he wasn't safe, meant that his clear disinterest in the Crown Prince's suit was being disregarded, and that the Crown Prince had clear and obvious intention to <i>remove</i> the Second Prince's Alpha.</p><p>He’d accused him, Fan Xian remembered distantly. He had been in the Palace, and the Emperor and the Chairman had a chance to act out the farce that led to war against Beiqi in the first place, because the Crown Prince had accused the Second Prince of killing Lin Gong. Specifically, he had accused <i>Xie Bi’an</i>.</p><p>If he had succeeded, if he had been believed… Xie Bi’an would have to commit suicide to save his Prince’s name from being smeared with the mud of murder. And all that had prevented that was the Prince’s offer to lend Xie Bi’an to him, which gave the latter an unshakeable alibi. Mere fucking <i>timing</i>.</p><p>This was… The Crown Prince’s actions weren’t only taboo, they were… they were... there were no words for how cruel, how evil, how <i>disgusting</i> he was!</p><p>Fan Xian had nothing to throw up, but he couldn't stop heaving, taking in smoke ridden air that scoured his throat and burned in his lungs.</p><p>No wonder the Second Prince had asked him to take Xie Bi'an with him. If Xie Bi'an could earn the honours to become higher than he was now – maybe a general, or a field marshal, he would be able to <i>marry</i> the Second Prince, and only an Emperor could dissolve that marriage.</p><p>And that, Fan Xian realised, was why the Second Prince was <i>still</i> channelling the funds away to raise an <i>army</i>. To stop the possibility that the <i>Crown</i> Prince could become the <i>Emperor</i>, and thereby actually be in power to dissolve said marriage.</p><p>And yet— if Xie Bi'an was here, then <i>who</i> was back in the capital protecting the Second Prince?!</p><p>His whirling thoughts came to a shrieking halt when he heard the clack of something heavy and metallic being set down on the stone ground. His eyes had teared up slightly from the fire, but he could recognise Xie Bi'an's silhouette and the silver of his uniform after the week and half (it seemed so much <i>longer</i>) they had spent together. </p><p>"You haven't finished reading," he said. Then he cocked his head, and Fan Xian wished he had clear vision right now because he was <i>sure</i> there was something in Xie Bi'an's eyes that he was now missing. "I didn't think you'd have such a huge reaction."</p><p>"<i>What</i> reaction were you expecting?" Fan Xian bit out, voice hoarse. "Oh, okay, it's great that the Crown Prince is... that the Second Prince is so at risk... sounds like a great way to conduct the family business! I had no idea – oh god that's why he'd been allowed to act the beta-role. Why he <i>chose to</i>.." </p><p>The Emperor of Beiqi had just about said as much, for all her delicate hints. </p><p>Had Si Lili known? She hadn't said, but she'd looked so, so sorry for the Prince, when she was the one sitting in a literal cage. </p><p>The Prince had no cage, but he was chained all the same by his brother's unnatural lusts. By the very real possibility of his brother having the ultimate authority over him. </p><p>Fan Xian knew exactly how an Emperor could throw a wrench into an Alpha's attempt to give his omega safety; wasn't he here in Beiqi purely because the bastard asshole of a Qing Emperor (his <i>father</i>, he thought hysterically, and hurriedly shelved that thought) had threatened his marriage to Wan'er? And now... now Xie Bi'an could do his absolute best, he could earn honours and win glory and become a decorated war hero...</p><p>But if the Crown Prince became the Emperor like his current rank stated that he <i>would</i>, then it would all come to naught. Because Xie Bi'an could be executed by the Emperor for breathing if the Emperor so wished it. And given that it was the Emperor, no one would be able to stop him. </p><p>No one would be able to save the Second Prince from his brother. No one <i>could</i>, now, except for himself. Except—</p><p>"What," Fan Xian said, turning to stare at Xie Bi'an, "is the asshole, the Second Prince's <i>Alpha father</i>, doing about all this?"</p><p>"That is, again, a question I didn't expect," Xie Bi'an said, after several heart beats. </p><p>Yan Bingyun was as silent as a block of wood, and there was just Fan Xian's harsh rasp over the campfire. </p><p>"Tell me!"</p><p>Xie Bi'an came forward, two steps. "My Prince is allowed generous indulgences," he said, very quietly. "that he may take who he likes as his mate, and it is no fault of his that I am not worthy. How many of my Prince's actions that might be treasonous, the Emperor's Omega had made no mention to the Emperor. My Prince, he is... An actual serious contender for the throne. You know how generous that is – Qing is nothing like Beiqi."</p><p><i>Not worthy</i>, Xie Bi'an said, like he hadn't gone to <i>war</i> just for a chance to <i>earn</i> the right to marry the omega he loved, the omega who had already chosen him. <i>Not worthy</i>, as if his birth and lineage and name meant more than the fact that the Prince had felt safe enough with him that – now that Fan Xian <i>knew</i> and <i>understood</i> and <i>could think about it</i> – he needed no other guard than his Alpha when he walked down the streets of the capital, no matter the kind of danger that might lurk around the corners to jump on an omega, much less an Imperial <i>male</i> omega.</p><p>As if, Fan Xian barely managed to hold back a snarl, any of that really <i>mattered</i>. As if the Emperor <i>allowing</i> the Second Prince to keep fighting like this was a good thing instead of him failing in his duty as an Alpha father to his omega child to protect him. He should have curbed the Crown Prince's lusts, should have thrown him out of that position, and—</p><p>And, what? Who could replace the Crown Prince? The Eldest Prince was ineligible because of his blood, the Third Prince hadn't even reached ten years old, and the Second Prince was an omega. The Emperor, Fan Xian realised with dawning horror, had <i>no heirs</i> who could replace the Crown Prince except for that very omega son whom he should be sheltering and protecting. No other contender other than...</p><p>No, Fan Xian told himself. No. Biological impossibility aside, he was a <i>bastard</i>, and bastards could never inherit. That was in the very <i>definition</i> of illegitimacy!</p><p>He let out a long breath through his teeth, thinking back on Xie Bi'an's words. And... His eyes snapped open. "Wait," he said. "Treasonous actions? The Chairman? What?"</p><p>"Chairman Chen," Xie Bi'an said, voice measured as a march. "knows <i>everything</i>. Do you not know what the Investigative Bureau does?" </p><p>And the Investigative Bureau reported directly to the bastard Emperor, so if Chen Pingping knew, then it was as good as the Emperor knowing, giving implied sanction to whatever the Second Prince was doing. </p><p>And... the Chairman had arranged almost everything for Fan Xian, hadn't he? A plan twenty years in the making just so Fan Xian could be the one to sit in the cave with Xiao En to get that secret about his own biological impossibility. </p><p>What more could he <i>not</i> do, to fix things for the Second Prince? Why couldn't he just assassinate the Crown Prince?</p><p>Probably because, Fan Xian thought, the Emperor <i>didn't</i> want him to do it. And the reasons why the Emperor didn't want him to would be...</p><p>Fuck, Fan Xian thought, falling onto his back and staring up at the sky above. Nice stars, he thought. Wan'er loved these stars. If someone lusted after Wan'er and placed her in that kind of danger that the Second Prince was in from the Crown Prince, he would stab the shit out of that bastard. Unfortunately, Xie Bi'an likely could not stab the shit out of the Crown Prince. Not without getting himself stabbed and possibly the Second Prince executed.</p><p>The Imperial family, he groused mentally to himself, made everything so goddamned <i>complicated</i>. Argh.</p><p>He took the letter, and read the rest of it. After a few characters, he realised that he was blocking the light from the fire with his own body, and sat back up with a sigh. Then he finished, and sighed again.</p><p>"You know," he said in the most casual and conversational tone he could muster, "there is really no goddamned need for all these threats."</p><p>"I did bring the gifts that my Prince had prepared," Xie Bi'an said. "Are you sure you don't want to see them?"</p><p>Fan Xian opened his mouth. Closed it. Started hitting his forehead against his own knees.</p><p>After a few good smacks, he resurfaced and jabbed a finger in Xie Bi'an's direction: "<i>Return them,</i>" he hissed. "Leave that kid and my brother and my teacher alone." There was more than the slightest trace of anger in his voice, fury that he actually felt. </p><p>(But he couldn't help but find it darkly humorous that the Second Prince was really so <i>omega</i> in his ways: he targeted a child, a young man, and an old man. Three generations, and all of them members of Fan Xian's family: a nephew of his heart, a brother by adoption, and a father-figure.</p><p><i>How</i> could he have mistaken the Second Prince for an Alpha?)</p><p>"There is no need," he repeated, "to threaten me. I will help." And even if he couldn't, he could find someone who would. Maybe the Chairman had merely been waiting for someone to <i>ask him</i> on the Second Prince's behalf?</p><p>Xie Bi'an was close enough for his blink to be seen. </p><p>"We," he said, stopped. "...were not sure of a guarantee you would help." </p><p>And they had had to <i>make</i> a guarantee, Fan Xian thought. </p><p>"Had none of you asked the Chairman directly?" </p><p>No, of course not. Xie Bi'an blinked again in response.</p><p>"The Chairman’s aim is to support the stability of the empire," Yan Bingyun offered hesitantly. "To support the Second Prince against the Crown Prince would be to destabilise the empire...?" </p><p>"The empire would be fucking destabilised if the Crown Prince fucked his brother!" Fan Xian snapped. The cold-hearted, hardened spy squeaked, jerking backwards slightly at Fan Xian's vehemence.</p><p>Xie Bi'an's face went a shade paler, and his lips pressed into a thin, tight line before he relaxed himself with visible effort.</p><p>"That will not happen," he said firmly. "I will kill him first." </p><p>He said that, Fan Xian realised with some awe, like he would say, 'and then I would chop that fly into half because I am just that fast.' He gave himself a few moments to gape.</p><p>"But that would be treason," Yan Bingyun squawked behind Fan Xian.</p><p>"Yes," Xie Bi'an said, looking immensely comfortable with the notion. "And then I will fall on my own blade so as to not implicate my Prince."</p><p>"And then your Prince would probably hang himself out of despair," Fan Xian said, trying not to rub his face. "Killing <i>yourself</i> is not an answer." </p><p>"I am willing to do it with all my heart in order to protect my Prince,' Xie Bi'an said. </p><p>Xie Bi'an was straightforward as the stereotype of Alphas was, generally cutting through bullshit to get to the heart of a matter. Xie Bi'an wasn't smart like Wang Qinian, to throw a knife and twist around circumstances to prevent the Crown Prince from getting what he wanted without having to commit treason. </p><p>Most Alphas couldn't do that, and Xie Bi'an was further disadvantaged by how much his instincts were surely screaming at him to protect his Prince. </p><p>It needed… Fan Xian hadn't even known that the Second Prince was at such risk, while every other omega in the country – and even those in Beiqi – had figured it out. </p><p>At the risk of sounding incredibly cliche… this case needed an omega's touch. </p><p>"We definitely are going to have to ask Chairman Chen for help," Fan Xian said. "There’s no point in stabbing the Crown Prince or ourselves before we get the Second Prince out of danger."</p><p>Xie Bi'an looked like Fan Xian had stabbed him in the gut and then followed it up with a slap besides. "No," he said. "The Emperor has set down an edict that the Princes are not to interfere in any of the workings of the Investigative Bureau." He paused, and then added, as if he was afraid that Fan Xian would not get it, "Asking him for help would be interference."</p><p>"Yes, yes," Fan Xian waved a hand. "But notice the wording here, Xie Bi'an: the <i>Princes</i> are not to interfere." He crossed his arms, and let a smug look cross his face. "<i>I</i> can ask the Chairman."</p><p>"And what," Yan Bingyun asked, his voice very cold, "makes you think that the Chairman would help you just because you asked?"</p><p>"He would," Fan Xian said. "I know he would."</p><p>"How dare you presume—" Yan Bingyun started.</p><p>"I have been curious about this for some time," Xie Bi'an interrupted him, head very slightly cocked to the side and eyes fixed on Fan Xian. "But what is your relationship with the Chairman of the Investigative Bureau? He seems to be very.... partial towards you."</p><p>"He's—"</p><p>Why was the Chairman, the Emperor's Omega, so partial to Fan Xian?</p><p>Why—</p><p>He was the Emperor's bastard, wasn't he? And Chairman Chen knew everything. Xiao En had been Beiqi's spymaster, but even in Beiqi Chen Pingping had a reputation that terrified and scandalized even Xiao En and Si Lili—</p><p>Honestly, why <i>wouldn’t</i> he know about Fan Xian's existence? He'd been the one to set Fan Xian up to be with Xiao En in the end. He had been the one to give Fan Xian the Director's badge. (Had he, in actual fact, been the one to set up Teng Zijing to be the one to fail to assassinate Fan Xian? He'd had to be the one who <i>recruited</i> Teng Zijing in the first place, oh god it made sense now, Guo Baokun was pathetic but he had been <i>innocent</i> of that particular bit of bloodthirstiness.) </p><p>"I'm very likeable," Fan Xian said, ignoring the fact that he was facing, on one side, a spy who had displayed little trust in him the entire time, and on the other was a swordsman who had not hidden his urge to throw Fan Xian off the various cliffs along the way to Beiqi. "I think Chairman Chen thinks I'm lovable and cute."</p><p>Xie Bi'an and Yan Bingyun's combined incredulous stares spoke entire volumes of disbelief.</p><p>"Really!" Fan Xian said, and tilted his head up. "The two of you are simply immune to my charms, that's all. Or," he grinned out of the corner of his mouth, "you two are trying way too hard to make yourselves unaffected."</p><p>Both of them were very good with the sword.</p><p>He hadn't even seen Yan Bingyun's skill, because he had been tortured for weeks by Shen Zhong, but the boy looked like he'd really attempt to stab and ask questions later for Fan Xian's bullshit.</p><p>No need to talk about Xie Bi'an's feelings of poking Fan Xian full of holes either; Xie Bi'an had made his feelings very clear.</p><p>"Don't worry," Fan Xian said, the cheer in his voice not entirely false, "I like both of you very much so I don't hold it against you."</p><p>The sound of metal scraping against metal had him tensing immediately.</p><p>"This is not a joking matter," Yan Bingyun said, his tone flat and eyes dead. "If you have something that you're holding over the Chairman, then I will—"</p><p>"Wait, wait, what?" Fan Xian whirled on him. "You think that I'm <i>blackmailing</i> Chen Pingping?"</p><p>"Him, blackmailing the Chairman of the Investigative Bureau?" Xie Bi'an said, completely disbelieving of the wild tangent this very serious conversation had taken.</p><p>No worries, Fan Xian was also very confused. This was some high level farce.</p><p>"Why else would the Chairman be so concerned for you?" Yan Bingyun said, with the force of someone who was a pretty good spy, a semi-decent actor, and generally shit at emotions, so really why would anyone take him as a measure for an argument against <i>why would my beloved Chairman like someone as charming as Fan Xian</i>?</p><p>"I have no fucking clue, maybe because he knew my mother?"</p><p>Fan Xian stilled, ignoring the sword Yan Bingyun was pulling out. "Wait. He knew my mother. He's the Emperor's Omega. Oh, oh my mother, <i>he's</i> my mother!"</p><p>"What," Xie Bi'an said.</p><p>Fan Xian jerked his head away from him, reaching out blindly with both hands. Somehow, he managed to find Yan Bingyun's face, and he clasped it tightly and dragged the spy closer, staring at him deeply in the eyes.</p><p>"The Chairman likes me so much because he's my mother," he hissed urgently. "I think he cheated on the Emperor with my mother!"</p><p>It made no sense whatsoever. It barely made sense in Fan Xian's head.</p><p>Yan Bingyun clearly agreed, because Yan Bingyun's answer was to stab him.</p><p>It was only because Xie Bi'an was close enough that his speed saved Fan Xian's liver from being sliced into two neat pieces, and what should have been an insta-kill stab turned into a long shallow gash up Fan Xian's hip to glance off his ribcage.</p><p>Well.</p><p>He said shallow – it's shallow only because his insides didn't immediately jump straight out.</p><p>There was a lot of blood, and Xie Bi'an's white robes under his armour were immediately splattered red.</p><p>Xie Bi'an hissed—</p><p>"Well fuck," Fan Xian said.</p><p>"How dare you insult the Chairman!" Yan Bingyun yelled belatedly.</p><p>"Fuck," Fan Xian said, and fell into Xie Bi'an's arms.</p><p>"You're fortunate that my Prince likes you and needs your help, Fan Xian," Xie Bi'an said, and did <i>something</i> that made the world spin dizzyingly, and then Fan Xian was draped across his shoulder. "Or else I'd just leave you here to bleed to death."</p><p>"I like him very much too," Fan Xian said into Xie Bi'an's shoulder. Backplate. Something. "Fuck. Your armour's very hard. 'mma gonna pass out now."</p><p>"Kindly do so at once, so I don't have to listen to you."</p><p>"Called me Fan Xian. Knew you liked me too."</p><p>Xie Bi'an didn't answer, but it was probably because Fan Xian had passed out by then.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Yan Bingyun had just survived months of torture at the hands of Beiqi's Shen Zhong, got rescued by an Alpha he has no idea can be trusted, said Alpha is completely incomprehensible, and just got his face grabbed in Alpha challenge by an Alpha <i>with a reputation for using rut-inducing drugs</i>, and then the same Alpha just yelled utter treasonous bullshit in his face.</p><p>Absolutely <i>no one</i> blames him for stabbing Fan Xian in self-defense. Fan Xian was almost literally asking for it.</p><p>XBA: If My Prince didn't want him alive, he would have been dead two hours from the start of this mission.</p><p><i>"Wait. He knew my mother. He's the Emperor's Omega. Oh, oh my mother, <i>he's</i> my mother!"</i> </p><p>Probably the best line in this entire fic, by Evocates. Because in Chinese it's: </p><p>"等等。他认识我娘。他是圣坤。哦，我的妈呀，他是我娘!!"</p><p>Which is a literal translation into English, a joke that works in both Chinese, English, and also an <i>actual plot point</i>.</p><p>And then Fan Xian follows that lovely line of incomprehensible bullshit with: </p><p>
  <i>"The Chairman likes me so much because he's my mother," he hissed urgently. "I think he cheated on the Emperor with my mother!"</i>
</p><p>It's a surprise he's still alive to the end of the fic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. EPILOGUE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fan Xian spent the rest of the trip home in his own carriage, Xie Bi'an standing – sitting – very reluctant guard against the whole reason they were in Beiqi in the first place. He'd set Gao Da – or Wang Qinian had – on Yan Bingyun, and there were no more eventful stabbings. </p><p>He spent that time mostly sleeping off the blood loss and recovering from nearly acquiring a brand new view of his internal organs, and so arrived in the Capital City of Qing groggy and vaguely useless. But not useless enough to not insist on being delivered to the Investigative Bureau instead of the Fan residence, because he had something to ask the Chairman. </p><p>Yan Bingyun was … interrogated for a bit on <i>his</i> interrogation, which was to be expected, considering how long he'd been on Beiqi's scenic dungeon tour, and when he was let out again to report to the Chairman on his technical success of his mission, the first thing he saw was Fan Xian pushing Chairman Chen's wheelchair. </p><p>Well. </p><p>It was about fifty-percent push, forty-percent support, and ten-percent power of will, but the visual counted. </p><p>"—I still feel like you could have told me in the first place, Niang," Fan Xian was saying. </p><p>Yan Bingyun froze so suddenly he nearly tripped over his own two feet. </p><p>"Niang? The Chairman is really your mother?" The already-pale Yan Bingyun went even paler than bleached parchment. "Oh god, I nearly killed the Mass Hallucination!"</p><p>"<i>You</i> were the one to stab the Mass Hallucination?" Yan Bingyun's father Yan Ruohan said, and if Fan Xian had thought the Fourth Division head disapproved of Fan Xian, his face at this lovely and completely incomprehensible bit of news was straight out of the spectrum of <i>nuclear</i>. </p><p>"I didn't know he was the Mass Hallucination!" Yan Bingyun all but yelled, and dropped down to his knees, kowtowing so hard his head hitting the paving stones practically echoed throughout the Bureau. "Forgive me, Chairman! I would never have stabbed him if I had known he was the Mass Hallucination!" </p><p>"I feel like <i>I'm</i> having a mass hallucination," Fan Xian said, remembering Shadow's cryptic remark from so long ago. He'd thought the man was just taking the piss. </p><p>"Please take my life as compensation!" Yan Bingyun <i>did</i> yell, produced a knife from god knows where, and tried to gut himself in a credible attempt at imitating a samurai. </p><p>He got dogpiled by the rest of the Investigative Bureau officers, and judging from the quality of yelling beneath the mass of everyone else, he was <i>probably</i> being prevented from committing harakiri. </p><p>Which Fan Xian appreciated. Getting to see Xie Bi'an's version of 'concerned nursemaid' due to unexpected stabbing was barely enough compensation for said stabbing, especially since it had been a very eventful week and a half in Beiqi where Fan Xian had had to solve Beiqi's politics for them with a spit and a wish. Yan Bingyun dying after all that effort would have made him spit nails. </p><p>"Is no one going to explain to me why the fuck I'm the Mass Hallucination?" Fan Xian demanded. </p><p>The Chairman exhaled a quiet, amused noise, and reached up to pat Fan Xian's hand. "Let them be. We have to go see the Second Prince, mm?" </p><p>"You're being very cryptic and cruel, Niang," Fan Xian grumbled, but he pushed the chair as directed. </p><p>Maybe he could wring Wang Qinian till he got the answer. </p><p>Chen Pingping chuckled very quietly, and didn't dispute that. </p><p>END</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and i'll post the next fic... on wednesday. </p><p>cheerios!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>